Tainted Angel
by RiP-Vii
Summary: Part II of my sevenpart series, The Legend. A faction of warriors known as Slayers declare war upon vampires and dhampirs alike. Their leader claims to be an angel from heaven, but there is something unholy about her. Rated for violence and language.
1. The Novice

_# Disclaimer: Vampire Hunter D belongs to Hideyuki Kukuchi and Urban Vision. I'm just borrowing it for my fic._

**The Legend II**

Tainted Angel

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_# Hey all! I'm back with the sequel to Once Bitten, Tainted Angel! Just to remind you all, there was a six-month time skip at the end of Once Bitten. In addition to that six months, two more months have passed. Well, here's the new beginning, so please enjoy! Cheers!_

**Chapter 1: The Novice**

A scream pierced the night. The middle-aged woman who had made the sound collapsed in horror on the dirt road in front of the old church. The ugly, slimy creature that had oozed out of the drain in her home had caught up with her.

The creature was man-sized and vaguely humanoid in form. Its skin was grey and mottled with moss green. It was painfully thin; its ribcage was visible and bones jutted out from under the skin on its long limbs. Its hands and feet were webbed. A thin layer of transparent slime covered its entire body. It had a small round head, dominated by two huge, bulbous all-black eyes. A small sucker-like mouth was visible at the base of its head.

When the thing had crawled out of the broken pipe at the woman's house, she had been alone at home – her husband had taken the children for dinner at their grandmother's. She had done the only thing she could think of – running for the church across the road from her home.

The creature advanced slowly, cautiously. When it was close enough, it reached out with a webbed hand as if to touch her.

There was a long, dragged-out creaking sound. The creature froze and turned its gigantic eyes towards the church building.

The door of the small living quarters beside the main chapel had opened – that was what had made the creaking sound. The novice, who had lived there alone since the resident priest died of old age a month ago, stood calmly in the doorway. She wore the novice's habit but no crucifix. No one had ever seen her pray.

Even so, it seemed to the terrified woman on the ground that the petite, quiet girl indeed possessed some divine power. For although she was just standing in the doorway looking at the monster, it was slowly backing away, clearly afraid.

Slowly, the novice began to walk towards the monster and the woman. As she approached, the creature retreated. Soon, the creature was backed up against the wall of a house, and the novice stood between it and its intended victim.

The novice took just one more step forward. It was too much for the weak-willed creature. It broke and ran, going on all fours in its hurry. It scurried down the dirt road and out of sight.

"Sister, is it all right to let it go like that?" the woman asked, alarmed.

The novice turned her head to look at the woman. The young, pretty face was calm. "It won't stop running for a very long time," the novice assured the woman. "And it won't be back."

The woman's eyes widened in horror all of a sudden. She pointed. "Sister! You're bleeding!"

The novice glanced calmly at her left hand. Blood was trickling down her fingers and dripping to the ground. The older woman could not see, but the blood was oozing from two puncture wounds on her wrist.

"Don't be alarmed," the novice said, unfazed. "It's just an unfortunate side effect of using my … ability. The bleeding will stop soon."

The novice turned away and gazed at the sky reflectively. It was not her ability. The ability to frighten the daylights out of a monster like that belonged to him – the hunter who had bitten her by accident while she had been him feeding blood from a cut on her wrist to save his life.

He had told her to wait for him. The note left at the empty grave had been anonymous, but she had known it was from him. Two months had passed, in addition to six months that had passed before the note had appeared. Until it had, she had thought him dead, buried under tons of rubble at the site of the collapsed castle on the tall hill overlooking this hamlet.

"Sister, do you hear …?"

The novice's eyes snapped into focus. "Yes, I hear," she told the woman standing behind her. "It's a horse. A horse in a great hurry."

The sound of hooves grew louder, closer. The novice watched, tense but unafraid, as a silhouette appeared out of the mist that covered the open fields on some nights. It was indeed a horse – with a rider.

"It is coming into the village, Sister!" the woman hissed, close to panic. "Do something!"

The novice barely heard the woman. "There is no need. I think --"

The young novice fell silent as a streak of pure white light shot out of the mist, striking the rider, who was hunched over. Just at that moment, the horse crossed into the pool of light cast by the street lights nearest to the edge of town.

Blood splattered the ground as the pale, black-garbed rider fell from his mount. Ignoring the frightened woman at her shoulder, the novice ran forward. With surprising speed, she reached the fallen rider. Without bothering to slow down, she crashed to her knees by his side.

"D," she breathed, barely able to believe her eyes as she took in the stunning visage. The moment of ecstatic wonder passed swiftly when she noticed the horrible wounds on the dhampir's lean, strong body.

Something had torn large, cylindrical holes as thick as fingers through the pale hunter's left shoulder, the right side of his chest and both his upper and lower abdomen. The holes went all the way through his body. Half-cylinders from glancing hits adorned both his arms and his right leg. Thick, dark blood was leaking from the wounds, especially the freshest one on his chest. All the wounds had a burnt, cauterised look to them, although they were still bleeding.

The novice recalled the white light that had shot out of the mist. That must have been the thing that had made the hideous wounds.

Even as the thought crossed her mind, a feeling of tremendous murderous intent from straight ahead caused her to look up. A shaft of white light was beaming out of the fog, aimed low to the ground, at D.

_The old priest lay, terribly weakened and no longer capable of moving about, in his hard bed. He was an old, old man, and his body was giving up. His heart, along with a dozen other organs, was failing. His bright blue eyes focused on the face of the young novice by his bedside._

"_Vianne, go to the desk and open the bottom drawer," he instructed her in a hoarse, thin voice. "Yes, the one I told you never to open. Bring the thing inside to me."_

_Obediently, the novice went to the large oak desk on the other side of the room and opened the bottom drawer. She took out the object she found inside._

_It was a bracelet made out of dark grey metal. An elaborate, swirling pattern was embossed all over the solid metal bangle with molten silver. It was surprisingly light. She brought it to the old priest and handed it to him reverentially._

_He took the bracelet in shaking, wrinkled hands. Releasing a small clasp, he swung the bracelet open on a hidden hinge. "Give me your hand, child."_

_Vianne extended her left arm. No longer trembling as much, the ancient priest closed the bracelet around her left wrist. The clasp caught with a soft click. The accessory fit the girl almost perfectly. The priest slumped back into the thin mattress, exhausted just by that small exertion._

"_I've kept watch over that bracelet for all my life," he said, his voice seeming even weaker than before. "It's the special holy talisman of this church. It's not as useful as a weapon in this dangerous world but, since I, as a man of God, cannot give you as such, this bracelet is yours. It will keep you safe. Safe."_

_It was as if that bracelet had been all that had been keeping the priest alive, as if he had been holding his last breath just so that he could pass if on to her. He gave her a look of fatherly fondness, then closed his kind blue eyes and breathed no more._

Vianne tore herself free of the instantaneous flashback just as the speeding bar of light was about to strike D's unconscious form. She flung out her left arm and struck the shaft of light, as if trying to wave it away.

The shaft met her arm with a bright flash. When the flare of light faded, a man holding an elegant silver longbow had emerged from the fog. He was tall and extremely slender. He was dressed like a fairy tale prince, in an embroidered dark blue coat and tight white breeches. His smooth brown hair fell in thick curls to his shoulders. The odd thing was, he carried no arrows. There was surprise etched on his graceful, aristocratic features.

Vianne knelt by D's side, her arm still intact and uninjured. Most of her sleeve had been burnt off, revealing the metal bracelet on her wrist. That, too, was unscathed. A white spark danced across the surface of the metal and was gone.

"Interesting trinket you have there, Sister," the archer commented. His voice was genteel and every bit as aristocratic as the rest of him. "I'm sorry if you had to defend yourself – I meant you no harm. My soul arrow was aimed at the dhampir scum on the ground in front of you."

"I will not allow you to kill in my village," Vianne said smoothly. "Leave."

"That won't be a problem," the archer said, smiling charmingly. "Let me just take the dhampir and leave your village. I'll kill him later."

"You can't have him," Vianne said in a steely voice. "Leave, now."

Truth to be told, she was terrified. She could sense the distilled hatred spilling from the archer in front of her. D was critically injured and unconscious. If the archer decided to attack, she had no way to fight him.

Her eyes narrowed when the graceful archer faltered. Then she saw what she had missed before. When he looked upon D, the archer gave off poisonous, murderous vibes. But when he looked at her, what filled his eyes and showed in his posture was a sort of … respect.

"If you want the dhampir, you will have to kill me first," she told him.

The archer lowered his silver bow without hesitation. "It is against my principles to harm the disciples of God," he said. "I will retreat for now, Sister. But I will return. You cannot protect the dhampir forever."

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and vanished into the mist. Vianne did not know what to make of that, but she had more pressing issues at hand.

She turned and looked back down the road. The woman she had saved earlier was still standing in front of the church, gaping.

"Stop looking so stunned!" Vianne yelled. "Come over here and help me carry him!"

* * *

The village doctor stifled a yawn as he hauled his medical case towards the church, following the hysterical woman who had roused him from his sleep with a story about archers who shot light and a terribly injured man. It was all too much for an aging man like him at this time of the night. He reached up absently and stroked his thick moustache. 

They arrived at the door to the novice's living quarters. "He's in there, he's in there!" the woman squawked anxiously. "He has holes all the way through his body, holes that you can look right through! She took him inside, said she was going to save him. But she's just a slip of a girl! How could she possibly save someone with wounds like that? That's why I went to find you!"

The greying doctor held up a hand to silence the overexcited woman. He knocked briskly on the stout wooden door. "Sister, this is Doctor Heimlind," he called. "Open the door. I was told you have a gravely injured traveller in there with you."

The door flew open. Vianne stood there, her face damp with perspiration. She looked pale and drawn, and very tired. "I appreciate your concern, Doctor," she said, sounding rather light-headed, "but your services are not necessary. Normal medical care cannot help this man."

"Why not?" the doctor asked, rather affronted.

"He's a dhampir," she explained. "Don't worry, I know what to do with him. I can handle it. Thank you once again, and good night." She shut the door in his face.

* * *

D awoke on a hard, narrow bed that was probably quite uncomfortable by human standards. He felt a dull, throbbing ache where the arrows of light had pierced him. He was healing. 

He could taste the metallic tang of blood in his mouth. As much as he did not want to, he remembered the taste of that blood. He had tasted it twice before, a year and a half ago, once when he had been on the brink of death, and once to save its owner's life.

With a little effort, he sat up. Sitting on the wooden floor, with her body slumped against the headboard of the bed, was Vianne. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was even. She was asleep. D could see the wetness of blood around the puncture wounds on her left wrist. She had forced blood out through the old bite wounds.

_D left his horse at the edge of the little village and walked in carrying Vianne's slight form in his arms. She was still unconscious and burning with fever._

_The village head pushed his way out from behind the frightened but curious crowd of villagers that had gathered. "You're finally here," the tall, thin man said brusquely. "The vampire has taken two of our women. He's retreated into the castle. The castle's at –"_

"_Wait," D said softly. Soft his command might be, but the crowd melted away like water. Even the village head stepped aside unresistingly._

_D's impassive dark eyes surveyed the villagers around him. No, all of them looked too suspicious, too afraid._

_Then he caught sight of the old church and the aged priest standing in the churchyard, watching quietly. His clear blue eyes were kind, non-judgmental. D moved towards the church. The villagers cleared themselves from his path automatically._

"_What can I do for you?" the priest asked when D got close enough. D walked past him, entered the chapel and laid Vianne down on a pew._

"_I have a favour to ask of you," the hunter said. "Watch over her."_

_The priest smiled. "Until you return from your task? But of course," he agreed readily. In a louder voice, obviously meant for the crowd to hear, he asked, "But might I enquire as to who the young lady might be?"_

"_She is someone I saved from a vampire," D replied. It was not untrue. "She walks in the sunlight."_

_The priest glanced at the sun, partially obscured by clouds, overhead. "Evidently."_

_D turned away to listen to the village chief's instructions. Under his breath, the priest muttered, "I will look after her for you, stranger. No harm will come to her. Godspeed to you."_

_Only D heard him. It was enough._

Back in the present, D looked down at the sleeping Vianne. He took in the conservative black long dress she wore, and the black cloth partially covering her head. _So this is how you have been living._

His eyes fell on the strange, antique-looking bracelet on her left wrist. The priest had given it to her, no doubt. After a few moments of inspection, he recognised it for what it was. The priest had been true to his word.

D looked around. Yet how had such an object come into the possession of an old priest living in a sleepy hamlet like this one? The kind old man had been more than his black cleric robe had suggested. D wondered vaguely who he had been before he had become a priest.

D saw movement below him. He looked down. Vianne was stirring. A few moments later, her dark almond-shaped eyes opened.

"You're awake," she said woozily.

"So are you."

Vianne smiled sleepily. "When I stop feeling so tired, you're going to explain to me why … you … took … so … long …"

She trailed off, and her head thudded lightly against the side of the wooden headboard once more. She had gone back to sleep.


	2. Slayer

**The Legend II**

Tainted Angel

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_# Hey all! I'm glad you all liked the new beginning. Hurray for D fans, the man is back. Here's the next chapter for you all. I'm sorry my uploads have been a little erratic these couple weeks .. I'm supposed to release a chapter once every weekend, but now it's coming out on random days. Writer's block!!! The next chapter isn't ready! T.T Never mind I'll squeeze it out by next week anyway, just for you guys. :) Hopefully, the schedule will be back on track too. Cheers!_

**Chapter 2: Slayer**

"You let him get away?" the musical, hypnotic voice said accusingly.

The voice came from the woman, whose face Rydel did not know, sitting in the throne atop the steps in front of him. A translucent white canopy shrouded the top of the podium, reducing her to a mere silhouette, an articulated shadow.

"A novice was protecting him," Rydel replied smoothly, bowing low to his faceless mistress. "I could not possibly have harmed her."

"Any disciple of the Almighty who shelters filthy scum will be regarded as such," the woman said in her fearsome yet magnificently beautiful voice. "Remember it next time, Rydel of the silver bow. If she stands in your way again, kill her and let her seek forgiveness in God's presence."

"But …"

"Remember, Rydel. I am the angel sent by God. I am His messenger, sent here for the express purpose of ridding the world of ungodly creatures – the vampires and their beasts. But before that, those half-vampire scums who call themselves hunters must go first. God has never before seen such hypocrisy, for these foul creatures are not of His creation, and He is displeased. But you already know that, Rydel. You have seen my power – God's power. Will you obey?" the woman thundered impressively. Her voice was like an orchestra when she spoke like that. It was loud, seemingly coming from all directions, and melodic.

"I will obey," Rydel promised solemnly.

"Good," the angel said, sounding pleased. "I want you to gather your fellows. Tonight, we will weed out the fools refuse to believe that God sent one down from among the ranks of His trusted messengers, and expel them from our elite ranks."

"I understand," Rydel said subserviently. "We must weed out the unfaithful."

"Yes, well said," the angel said, sounding pleased. "Now, gather them before me, Rydel. Gather the Slayers."

* * *

"What the fuck is a Slayer?" Vianne demanded. Eight months of living as a Christian novice had not curbed her potty mouth, apparently. 

"There's no need to be so vehement about it," D's left hand chided. "It's only a name."

"Sorry," Vianne said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. "But I haven't been able to swear for the past eight months, so excuse me if I use curses a little in excess right now."

"Fine," conceded the face in D's hand. "The Slayers are members of a new order that has sprung up recently. Think return to religion, Crusader-style."

Its tone made its opinion of the whole Slayer thing very clear. Vianne could not help smiling.

"They are apparently following the orders of a female angel sent by God from heaven," the hand continued cynically. "A big hunk of baloney, if you ask me. Their aim is to rid the world of filthy 'ungodly animals', such as vampires. Or the slave driver whose hand I'm unfortunately stuck to."

Vianne's smile widened a fraction at the jibe. "So that guy with the silver bow is one of those Slayers, then?"

"You got that right," the left hand replied.

"At the moment, they are specifically targeting dhampir hunters," D entered the conversation suddenly. "I have heard rumours of some who have already been Slain."

"Their argument is, apparently, that dhampir hunters are an even lower class than their vampire ancestors precisely because they are vampire hunters. Half-vampires hunting and killing vampires … that's unforgivable hypocrisy to Slayers, apparently," the left hand sneered.

"How did you get tangled up with one of them, anyway?" Vianne asked. She had one eyebrow raised in a show of scepticism for the Slayers' vendetta against dhampirs.

"He was in the castle," D replied.

"That encounter was too close for comfort, I tell you," the left hand chimed in. "Right after D here put an end to that promiscuous bloodsucker in the castle, the lousy place kind of fell apart. The place caved in such that there was this huge hollow in the middle, lucky for us. Suddenly this streak of white light shot past, nearly taking D's head off. That was the guy. I still wonder where he was hiding before."

It stopped and cleared its throat. Then it narrated, "D and that trigger-happy pretty boy fought for a while in that darkness. After a few hours, the pretty boy got a bit tired of the stalemate. So he broke out of the ruins, then activated this trap he had set up around the hollow. It was a force field thing that kept D in _and_ sapped his life force. The energy drain was too great, and he shut down for a bit. I was left, as usual, to do everything. That was one hell of a force field. It took me … a few months, I reckon, to eat a good-sized hole through it. It patched itself whenever I swallowed part of it. I guess whatever was fuelling it finally ran out of energy at the end."

"So you came out," Vianne said quietly. "You saw the grave."

"That he did," the left hand cut in before D saw fit to reply. It got extremely talkative around Vianne, for some reason. "Almost moved him to tears, it did. No, it didn't, I'm just kidding. He couldn't take the whole force field thing lying down, so he left you a note to let you know he's not dead, then went off to kill that damn bastard."

"And nearly got killed, instead," Vianne said dryly. She did not look too pleased. Probably sore about the blood. Or the ruined sleeve.

"Oh, that was a dirty trick," the left hand said dismissively. "We spent months looking for him, mostly by following the trail of dead dhampirs. Then we found that he's led us in a big circle, and was heading back here again. He caught D in an illusion … just long enough to get a few shots in. That bastard is a master illusionist. He can manipulate light. Even I couldn't tell until it was too late. After we broke out from the illusion, he immediately hit us with another one. Made us think he was headed into town. When you saw him, D was charging in here to chop the pretty bastard up into pieces, but he turned out to be behind us, so that was that. Lucky you were there when you were, really. That archer has too many tricks up his sleeve. Caught us by surprise."

"It doesn't matter," D said, unconcerned. "It won't happen again."

"You're going to go after him again, huh," Vianne said. It was not a question. "I guess you have to. All who challenge you must die, no? It's a reputation thing. You'll lose credit as the most dangerous hunter of all time if you don't kill this guy. I can guess why you didn't drop by six months ago, when you first got out of the ruins. You didn't want me to come with you, and you knew I would insist. Too bad, you're here now. I want to go with you."

"No."

"You know what he said before he left?" she argued. "He said he can't harm disciples of God. He thinks I'm a goddamn nun or something. I'll be fine."

D did not answer for a while. Then he said, "Do what you like."

* * *

Six men and a woman stood in a loose half-circle at the base of the stairs leading up to the top of the dais where the angel was seated in her throne. Their expressions ranged from those of suspicion to those of cautious respect. Only Rydel's was one of absolute devotion. 

"Welcome, Slayers," the angel said in her impressive voice. Her words reverberated off the domed ceiling and rung in the ears of the warriors assembled before her. "My heart is gratified that you could all make it to this meeting today. It's going to be a … memorable one."

"I don't know about anyone else here, but I would sure like to see your face, angel," one of the men, a lanky gunner, said bluntly. "After all, anyone could just sit behind a curtain in a nice place with fancy acoustics and pretend to be an angel. Meaning no disrespect, of course."

This time, the angel's voice boomed out, striking deep into the hearts of the Slayers, "You wish to see my face? So be it!"

The white curtains hiding her from view flew open, and brilliant white light flooded the room. The seven Slayers turned away from the podium, shielding their eyes. When the blinding light faded, they looked back up to gaze upon the woman standing before them.

She was a tall, beautiful woman with delicate pearl-white skin. Her luscious black hair tumbled in soft, springy waves all the way to her waist. Her slim form was clothed in a wine-red floor-length gown with trailing sleeves. For a moment it seemed that the image of a pair of feathered wings was burnt into the air in golden light behind her, and then it was gone. The white light glittering all around her went out, seeming to retreat into the heavy-looking bangle on her wrist, which was made of dark metal and bore swirling patterns of gold.

"Does this satisfy you, Raoul?" she asked, her large dark eyes swivelling to land on the man who had challenged her. He visibly quailed under her imperious gaze.

"Of course, angel," he barely managed to say as he fell on one knee and lowered his head. Rydel was already in the same position.

The only woman in the group, a willowy woman with short fiery red hair, gazed without fear upon the angel's incredibly fine features. Her fingers danced gently over the rows of throwing knives dangling from her belt. Her green eyes met the angel's black ones for a full minute. Then she said, "So you really are a woman. That's nice to know," and lowered herself gracefully onto one knee.

After her, two more men dropped to one knee. One was a heavyset, bearded giant; his name was Ethan, and he was a master in the use of explosives. The other was a short but extremely muscular dark-skinned man with a huge pronged sword strapped to his back; he was known as Fabian.

"Talia … why do you find it heartening that I am indeed a woman?" the angel asked.

The red-haired woman smiled slightly and replied, "Because it makes me happy to know that God allows females to serve Him, too. Because I despise the belief that all angels are male, that only men can rise high in God's favour and be of use to Him."

"You are a fool, Talia," one of the two men still standing interjected. Like Talia, he was a user of throwing knives. "All angels are male; there has been no evidence to show otherwise. This 'angel' is an obvious fake. Powerful, perhaps, but fake."

"All angels are male?" the angel said derisively. Cold anger entered her voice as she said, "The soft, merciful ones who appear in biblical stories and sing, maybe. This is not a time for singing or mercy, I'm afraid. God is becoming alarmed at the way this world is turning out. And I, my dear Tanner, am certainly not a singer. I am God's warrior, and I am female."

Tanner paled as the angel raised her hand as if to slap him. The golden swirls on her bracelet were glowing vermillion. She swung her hand across the air between them, and an orb of orange flame flew through that space, striking Tanner in the chest. Instantly, his entire body burst into flame. The last remaining man who was still standing, a painfully skinny old man dressed in flowing robes, hastily got down on one knee.

The flames were reflected in the angel's eyes as she watched Tanner burn. There was no charred corpse, no ash, nothing; he was simply gone, completely consumed by the mysterious fire that had sprung from the angel's bracelet.

* * *

Vianne sat up in bed, unable to sleep. She was back in the tiny bedroom behind the confession booth, which she had occupied before the priest's death, because D was recuperating in the priest's old room. The wounds the archer had inflicted on him were taking a long time to heal fully; it was some powerful magic that he wielded with his silver bow. 

Rubbing her eyes, Vianne got out of bed. Something was nagging at the back of her mind. It was almost like a voice, calling to her whenever she was about to fall asleep. Feeling slightly irritated, she put a robe on over her thin nightgown and left her room.

She wandered out of the chapel and around the church building. At the end of a short path, a wrought iron gate led into the small cemetery behind the church. Vianne started when she saw the tall, dark figure standing by the gate, apparently examining it.

"D? What are you doing out here?" she asked as she went up to the gate. "You should be resting, or something."

He did not answer her. His dark eyes were still scanning the gate, as if he were searching for something. "When the Slayer came into this village after me, he fired a shot that did not hit me. How did you block it?" he asked instead.

Vianne hesitated for a few seconds. Then she held out her left hand and showed D the bracelet around her wrist. "This thing," she answered. "It was as if it absorbed the light or something. I don't know how, either."

"Aha, so that old geezer gave her the real thing," D's left hand said. "I wonder how he got his hands on something like that."

"The real what?" Vianne demanded, surprised that D and his left hand knew more about the bracelet than she did. "What do you know about this bracelet?"

"Well, I'd say whatever is behind that gate will be able to tell you a lot more about that little accessory of yours, once D figures out how to activate the portal," the left hand said.

"There are only corpses out there," Vianne said. "It's a cemetery. They just buried the priest there a month ago."

"A gate can lead to more than one place," the left hand told her with a quiet chuckle.

"Vianne, give me the bracelet," D instructed.

Perplexed, she undid the clasp, took off the bracelet and handed it to D, who fitted it into a circular slot, which she had thought was just a depression in the iron circle around the centre of the iron cross decorating the top of the gate.

She felt her jaw drop as the entire gate disappeared, leaving only an empty archway and the bracelet hanging in midair. As the bracelet fell, the image framed by the archway changed. If one looked from either side of the gateway, one would still see the dreary and grey local cemetery. But if one looked through the arch itself, one saw white marble and blue water.

D caught the falling bracelet and returned it to Vianne, who was still stunned. When she had recovered, she put the bracelet back on and walked through the archway. D followed behind her.

They were in a huge room made of white stone. The domed ceiling was at least fifty metres above them. The entire room was filled with deep blue still water, except for a circular platform of white marble in the centre and the long, narrow path that connected the platform to the gate. The entire room was lit by a large, softly glowing white orb hanging in the air above the platform.

Vianne made her way down the white marble path, careful not to slip and fall into the water on either side. Something told her that it would be freezing cold. As she got nearer to the platform, she noticed that there was someone there, waiting for her.

A minute or so later, she stood at the edge of the platform. All around the circular platform, white marble steps led down into the water. An ornate white marble pedestal was built into the middle of the platform, directly under the white orb. A tall, lean young man with blond hair and blue eyes stood by the pedestal. He was dressed in flowing pale blue robes.

"Welcome to the lunar sanctuary, Vianne," the man said, smiling. "You've answered my call a little earlier than I'd expected. Then again, I hadn't expected the hunter to be back to help you figure out how to get in here."

Vianne raised an eyebrow. "So you're the one who's keeping me from sleeping? Who are you and what do you want with me?" she asked.

An amused smile graced the man's features. "Don't you know me, Vianne?"

She frowned and studied his face, trying to remember if she had ever seen it before. After a while she found herself looking into his eyes, his kind blue eyes. She gasped sharply as realisation struck her.

"You're the _priest_?" she sputtered. "What did you do to yourself? Resurrection plus revolutionary anti-aging treatment?"

The man laughed. "That was just a disguise; I'm much older than that, but I've never looked that old," he explained. "I was hiding in that church, waiting for someone whom I thought would be able to put that bracelet to good use. But you see, I'm the lunar sanctuary's guardian, and I'm tied to it, so I can't be away for too long. I needed to come back in, but that would mean disappearing suddenly. I thought dying would be a good idea."

"Oh," Vianne said, momentarily at a loss as to what to say. "So you gave me the bracelet, pretended to die, and snuck back in here."

"Well, I sensed that you were worthy of the bracelet," the lunar guardian said with a shrug. "Besides, if my instincts serve me well, I think you'll need it in the days to come."

"I'm flattered," Vianne said. She glanced back at D, who stood a few metres back, waiting. Then she asked, "So tell me. What exactly is this thing you snapped around my wrist?"


	3. Necromancer

**The Legend II**

Tainted Angel

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

**  
Chapter 3: Necromancer**

"It's called the Moon Bracelet," the lunar guardian told Vianne. "You've already seen what it does. That was why I chose this time to call you in here."

"So it's a shield thing?" she asked. "Since you're not a priest anymore … does it do anything fancy? Like reflect attacks back at the attacker or shoot moon beams or whatever?"

The lunar guardian smiled sheepishly. "Unfortunately not," he replied. "Like you said, it's just a 'shield thing'. Not a weapon."

"So basically you called me in here to tell me the name of this bracelet?" Vianne said. Her eyebrow was in the air again.

The guardian looked pained. "That's … direct," he remarked. "All right, I'll get to the point. Now that you know about the Moon Bracelet's powers, I need a favour from you."

Vianne raised the other eyebrow, too. "You need a favour from me? Okay, fine. I owe you for the past eight months anyway. What is it?"

"Before you can understand what I'm asking of you, I have to tell you about the history of the Moon Bracelet. A long time ago, a group of gifted magic users created two bracelets, the Sun Bracelet and the Moon Bracelet. The former is a weapon, and the latter is a shield. They were made such that the Sun Bracelet's powers can pierce any defence, and that no attack can get past the shield of the Moon Bracelet. Two sanctuaries were created and hidden, each with its own guardian, to house the bracelets and prevent them from being misused."

"This thing comes in a set with a weapon?" Vianne said, jangling the bracelet on her wrist.

The lunar guardian looked as if he did not know whether to laugh or to smack his forehead in exasperation. In the end he just said, "You can say that. But some time back, something happened. The solar guardian – I suppose she's my sister of sorts – was killed in her sanctuary. Someone broke in somehow and murdered her. I would guess whoever did it was after the Sun Bracelet. I do not know if the culprit succeeded; I only know that the solar guardian is dead. What I need you to do is to go to the solar sanctuary and take the Sun Bracelet into your possession. Now that its guardian is dead, it's no longer secure where it is. And if the Sun Bracelet is no longer there, you must find the thief and take it back."

"Three problems," Vianne said almost immediately. "One, I don't know where the solar sanctuary is. Two, I don't have the means to get in. Three, I'm not exactly keen on fighting someone who holds a weapon that can pierce any defence."

"I guess I wasn't very clear about that," the lunar guardian said apologetically. "You see, the makers of the bracelets felt that there was no harm in having an unbreakable shield alone, but there was potential danger in creating an invincible weapon. So they made the Moon Bracelet stronger – it alone can block the attacks of the Sun Bracelet – so that if the Sun Bracelet ever fell into the wrong hands, someone using the Moon Bracelet can get it back without being harmed."

"Okay, that solves the third problem," Vianne conceded. "You'd better not be lying. If I die doing this, I'm going to come back and haunt you."

"As for finding the solar sanctuary, you can use this," the guardian said, handing Vianne a small silver compass. The needle was turning freely. "You concentrate your thoughts on the solar sanctuary, and the needle will point you in the right direction. When you're close enough to the portal, say about two metres' radius or so, the needle will glow slightly. And you can use the Moon Bracelet to open the solar portal; it works just as well."

"All right," Vianne agreed. "But one more question. Why don't you do this yourself?"

The lunar guardian sighed. "I'm just the guardian of the Moon Bracelet. I can't use it. Think about it; if the solar guardian had been able to use the Sun Bracelet, she probably would have killed her attacker instead. And we guardians, we're just like your hunter friend over there. We don't get old, and we don't fall sick, but otherwise we're susceptible to mortal wounds."

Vianne nodded. "Okay. Do I need to report back to you after I've done this thing?"

The lunar guardian shook his head. "If it isn't convenient for you, you don't have to. There is nothing more I can do if you fail, anyway. I don't have a spare bracelet."

Vianne smiled at that. Then she turned to follow D, who was already leaving, out of the sanctuary. About halfway up the marble path, she turned and called back, "By the way, do you have a name?"

At that distance, she could barely make out the smile on the lunar guardian's face. "Yes I do," he called back. "My name is Raphael."

* * *

"What do you require of me?" the old man in purple robes asked humbly as he knelt alone before the angel. The others had been dismissed.

"Magister, I am well aware that your loyalty to me is driven by fear," the angel said. "I could kill you now, and send you to meet God and beg His forgiveness for your lack of faith. However, I have something for you to do. If you do it well, perhaps I will take it as a show of your repentance. I want you to go after the vampire hunter D."

"But … that is Rydel's job!" Magister protested weakly.

"It is Rydel's job to kill D, yes," the angel said. "But I don't want you to kill him. According to Rydel, he has a girl with him. He also mentioned a bracelet that could block his attacks. I have an idea of what that bracelet is, and it certainly does not belong on a faithless novice who betrays God by aiding a dhampir. I want you to get the bracelet and bring it to me. Kill the girl if necessary."

* * *

Vianne stood alone in front of the old priest's gravestone, bathed in late afternoon sunlight. Fingering the bracelet on her wrist, she compared in her mind the supernatural guardian she had met the night before to the kind elderly cleric who had taken care of her for eight months. Had they truly been one and the same?

"Greetings."

At the sound of the unfamiliar voice, Vianne whipped around. Standing just a few feet away from her was an old man, so painfully thin that the bones in his hands and wrists bulged prominently under his wrinkled papyrus-like skin. There were dark circles under his sunken eyes, as if he was haunted by some overwhelming fear that prevented him from getting any rest. He was dressed in slightly ragged deep purple robes, much in the fashion of the wizards found in old illustrated children's storybooks.

"Who are you?" Vianne asked cautiously.

"My name is Magister," the old man replied, "and I am a trader, of sorts. That bracelet … in all my years in this line I have yet to see anything like it. I believe it to be of much value to me. Is there any chance that I may buy it from you? I am willing to pay quite an attractive price."

"I'm sorry," she told him stiffly, "but I wouldn't sell this for any sum of money. It means something to me. I'm afraid you'll have to forgo this business opportunity."

Strangely, the old man smiled. It was a crooked, unfriendly smile that made Vianne uncomfortable. "I was hoping you would say that," he said slyly. "Then I can take it from you without wasting my money."

Panicking, Vianne dodged to one side as Magister lunged at her, his skeletal fingers grasping at her left arm. Going around him, she prepared to run for the gate, but a real skeleton's hand burst out of one of the graves and grabbed her ankle, tripping her. She went down, hard, on the cold graveyard dirt.

Magister stood over Vianne's prone form, rubbing his hands together in glee. "It's a pity for you that you had to encounter me in a graveyard," he said, snapping his fingers. Vianne watched in horror as several graves burst open, and the remains of their occupants climbed out. Some of the skeletons still had bits of decaying flesh clinging to the bones.

"What the hell are you doing?" she cried out, unable to tear her eyes away from the empty eye sockets of the corpses advancing on her.

"I'm using my powers, my dear," the old mage replied. "I can reanimate and control the carcasses of the dead. That's why I said you were unlucky that I caught you in a cemetery. I am a necromancer, dear girl. Now, the bracelet, if you please."

"You ain't getting it that easily," Vianne retorted. Turning her head back towards the church building, she yelled as loudly as she could, "D!"

Her scream was abruptly cut off as one of the skeletons clamped its bony hand over her mouth. Vianne felt her skin crawl – the surface of the bone was cold and slimy. A musty stench rose from the decaying hand pressed over her nose and mouth.

"No shouting, please," Magister chided. "Now, I'll just take that little trinket and be on my way before your friend decides to check on you."

Vianne struggled vainly against the slimy but firm grip of the skeleton holding and gagging her as another skeleton fumbled with her bracelet, trying to find a way to open the apparently seamless ring and get it off her wrist.

"I don't suppose you will offer to take it off for me?" Magister asked, frowning impatiently as his bony slave made no progress. Vianne shook her head and glared up at him defiantly.

Her eyes widened as he produced a rather large knife from within the folds of his robes and crouched down in front of her. His tone was almost sad as he said, "Then I'll just have to cut your hand off and take it, won't I?"

* * *

Talia was about to climb out of bed when a lean arm wrapped around her svelte waist, pulling her back under the covers. Not resisting the restraint, she twisted around to face the man whose bed she had shared for the night.

"What do you want, another round?" she asked brusquely.

Raoul smirked and traced her curves with his hand. "I'm tempted," he replied, letting his palm come to rest on her thigh, "but I've just got something to ask you. How did you do it?"

Talia raised an eyebrow. "Do what?" she asked. Wrapping her legs around Raoul's hips, she made a small jerking motion. Suddenly he was pinned down on the bed, flat on his back, and she was straddling him. "This?"

Not in the least intimidated by her show of dominance, Raoul laughed and ran his hand up the inside of her thigh. Then he said, "No, it doesn't have anything to do with your skills in bed, satisfactory though they may be. How did you convince Ethan and Fabian to follow your lead?"

Smiling, Talia planted both her palms on Raoul's bare chest and lowered her torso so that her face was bare inches away from his. "And what makes you think they're with me?"

Raoul curled his fingers around Talia's wrist. In a flash, she was on her back, and he was leaning over her. "Don't play coy with me, Talia," he snapped. "They were watching you in that audience hall. They only knelt because you did; that much was obvious. What did you do, huh? Bed them? Funny, I'd have thought you'd get crushed or bloodied."

Talia grabbed Raoul's shoulders, digging her nails into his skin, and raised her body to bring her face closer to his. "You want to accuse me of something? Go ahead."

"Nah," Raoul said with a cocky smile as he leaned down and pressed a rough kiss onto her lips. "If you've slept with someone else, I'd smell it on you."

Apparently appeased, Talia wrapped her slim arms around Raoul's upper torso and hooked her legs around his as she pulled him down on top of her. Placing her well-formed lips right next to his ear, she whispered, "And what about you? You weren't really scared of her when she did the whole grand revelation thing. But you pretended, and you knelt. Why was that? Do you think she can help you find that long-lost little sister of yours?"

The next thing Talia knew, she had hit the floor beside the bed with a loud thump. "Get out," Raoul said from above, tightly reined agitation evident in his voice.

Talia found her clothes, strewn about on the floor around her, and put them on. "Don't give yourself false hope, Raoul," she advised with a hard edge in her voice. "You saw what the angel did to Tanner, just for being a male chauvinist pig. She won't help you. That angel knows no compassion." And out she went.

* * *

The blade stopped a mere hair's breadth from the surface of Vianne's skin. Magister's wrinkled hand had been stayed by the force of the shaky but thick aura emanating from his intended victim. Trembling from the effort, Vianne kept the unsteady miasma flowing from her focussed on Magister, keeping him from slicing into her arm. Blood began to ooze from the pair of puncture marks on her wrist.

Vianne was terrified. The cold, unearthly aura that had made that sewer monster flee with its tail between its legs was barely able to freeze Magister in place. There was no way she could make him release her, unless she called for D. But if she did, the spell would break …

Just for a moment, Vianne's concentration, which had never been steady to begin with, wavered. Magister blinked and shook his head slightly. Consciousness returned to his glazed eyes. Not seeming perturbed at all by the episode, he smiled grimly.

"That's an interesting ability you have, my dear," he commented lightly as he examined her bleeding wrist. "God knows how you came by it … and what price you paid."

Vianne let out a squeak, quickly muffled by the skeletal hand clamped over her mouth, as the sharp blade bit into the flesh of her wrist. Magister began moving the knife back and forth in a sawing motion, slowly working it down through her flesh and, eventually, through the ligaments of her wrist joint. It would be a slow, painful way to lose her hand. Blood poured from the deep cut, wetting the dark earth. The knife nicked an artery, and this time the crimson liquid jetted out in a fine spray, splattering Magister's clothes and face. He ignored it and kept cutting.

A thin stream of blood trickled down to Vianne's chin from where she had bitten down hard on her lip in an effort to stave off the excruciating pain. That tiny brook began to drip onto her chest, almost like a miniature version of the roaring river of blood pouring from her wrist. The thick, cloying odour of blood filled the air.

Magister had forgotten one thing. Vampires and dhampirs alike, much in the manner of sharks, could smell blood from miles away. And there was a dhampir in the church just next to the graveyard. That negligence would now be his downfall.

The long steel blade of D's sword limned a wide silver arc through the air, bisecting the skeleton restraining Vianne from head to crotch. Without pause, the blade slashed through the air, this time aimed at Magister's neck.

The old necromancer leapt back with spryness unbecoming of his age, leaving his knife embedded in Vianne's arm. But he was too late. D was already behind him, bringing the lethal sword down in one perfect, vertical silver line.

Gore sprayed in all directions, yet none of it landed on the dhampir who had spilled it. It was as if the blood and viscera were afraid to taint D's body. Sheathing his miraculously unstained sword, D walked between the falling halves of Magister's body and moved to Vianne's side.

Her tear-streaked visage was pale with pain and blood loss. Her left arm was extended stiffly in front of her, in the same position that Magister had left it in, as if it would hurt more to move it than to just hold it up. The knife had fallen to the ground, and her nerveless hand hung half-severed at the wrist, the whiteness of bone visible through the gaping wound.

Gently, D took her hand and manoeuvred it back into its normal position. An undignified groan of agony escaped Vianne's lips, and her good hand clawed frantically at the ground. Wasting no time, D tore a strip of dark purple fabric from Magister's robes and used it to bind her hand in place. Within seconds, the entire makeshift bandage was wet with blood.

"Why won't it stop?" Vianne sobbed. Only she knew whether she was talking about the pain or the blood. "I feel so cold …"

Wordlessly, D touched his left hand to her damp, bloodless forehead. Her eyelids fluttered for a moment, then closed, and comforting darkness washed over her mind.


	4. Split Roads

**The Legend II**

Tainted Angel

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_# Hey all! Wishing you all an early merry christmas! That ain't all either. Besides my usual weekly chapter, I present to you my christmas present to you all -- a double release! Yes, both chapters 4 and 5 are out this week. What's more, I don't play dirty like those manga artists and skive off the week after a double release. If all goes well, next week's chapter will be up as usual. Yay! You may all bow down and worship me now. Just kidding! Enjoy! _

**Chapter 4: Split Roads**

Vianne awoke in a warm, clean bed. A quick glance around at the row of berths arranged in the room told her that she was in the local infirmary. A tube taped to her right wrist was feeding some sort of drip into her bloodstream. Her left wrist was in a cast. Her bracelet lay on the small bedside table. Her wound no longer hurt so much. In fact, it more itched like hell than anything.

She sat up, trying to ignore the discomfort in her wrist, and fumbled for the call button on the wall by the headboard of the berth. A moment later, Doctor Heimlind emerged from his office on the far side of the modest ward.

"You're awake," he said when he reached her bedside. He seemed somewhat surprised by that. After doing a quick check on her vitals, he asked, "How're you feeling?"

"Itchy," she replied truthfully, waving her immobilised left wrist at him. "What happened?"

Doctor Heimlind frowned. A wound of that severity, received only a few hours ago, should hurt. It certainly should not itch until several days later. From the pocket of his white coat, he produced a swipe card and scanned it in the slot built into the electronic wrist cast. The electronic lock clicked, and the cast popped open. The doctor removed it and began unwinding the bandages around Vianne's sutured wound.

As he removed the bandages, he said, "A few hours ago your dhampir guest brought you in here, saying that you had been set upon by a robber. I stitched up and dressed your wound, then gave you a blood transfusion. After that you just slept. I actually had some trouble getting the bracelet off to get your arm in that cast, but your friend seemed to know how it worked, and he got it off for me. I must say, to see you up so quickly after losing so much blood … Sister, your powers of recovery are truly … amazing …"

Towards the end, his voice trailed off as his jaw hung slack. The last of the bandages had come off, revealing Vianne's supposedly grievously injured wrist. Instead of an ugly, freshly stitched raw wound, there was only a pinkish half-healed scar covered by a cracked scab.

"Well," the doctor said briskly after a while, "obviously you don't need this cast anymore." Seeming to have gotten over his shock, he removed the tube from her right arm and applied pressure to the entry wound to staunch the bleeding.

"Where did D go?" Vianne asked.

"He left the village almost right after I finished your blood transfusion," Doctor Heimlind replied. "I'd think a famous vampire hunter like him would have a lot of business to take care of elsewhere, wouldn't you?"

"Fuck!" she swore loudly. "That bastard slipped away while I was unconscious!" At Doctor Heimlind's wide-eyed, alarmed stare, she hastily said, "Uh … I mean, darn, he took advantage of my condition to stop me from following him."

The old doctor had one bushy eyebrow raised in bemusement. "You wish to travel with the hunter, Sister?"

Vianne smiled and answered, "But don't you remember? That's what I used to do before he left me here eight months ago. I've got to run now … thanks for fixing up my hand!"

With that she grabbed her bracelet and left the small, single-ward hospital. Doctor Heimlind was left standing by the empty berth, utterly perplexed.

* * *

The angel took her lethal bracelet off and tossed it on the dressing table as if it were something dirty. A soft sigh of relief escaped her sculpted lips.

Her beautiful eyes gazed upon the powerful magical weapon with loathing. It hurt her to wear that thing upon her bare skin. It was a pain that not only burned her skin, but etched itself upon her flesh and bones as well. It was a pain born of the clash between her own nature and that of the mystical bracelet.

A strangely wistful smile graced the lovely angel's face as she continued to stare at the wrist ornament. Painful though wearing it was, the trinket was necessary to achieve her aims. Who would have thought that someone like her would be able to harness the power of the sun? With it, she would save herself, as well as the rest of her brethren. With it, she would halt the decline of her species. With it, she would burn a future for her kind within a world that no longer had a place for it or tolerated its presence.

Shedding her graceful crimson dress, the angel eased her pale, flawless body into bed. Comfortable though the mattress was, she was not used to sleeping in such a bed. For someone like her, there could be no rest in a bed like this. Nonetheless, she relaxed her body, pulled the sheets up over her alluring form and tried to get some semblance of rest.

* * *

Vianne left the village on foot, dressed once again in a black pilgrim's dress – the raiment of a travelling novice. There were two spare dresses, along with her old blouse, vest and pants, which she had mended long ago, in the pack slung over her back. There was also some food and a small electronic heat cube in the pack.

At the gates, she stopped and looked back at her home of eight months. She could just make out the cross on the roof of the church. Instinctively, she averted her eyes from the symbol, without quite knowing why.

The village she was leaving was a small, relatively peaceful hamlet tucked away in a sleepy valley. It was one of very, very few settlements where people still went to church, still prayed, still believed. There had not been any morning services since the priest had died, but the inhabitants of this village still turned up at the chapel from time to time, if only to clasp their hands before the altar, and to leave small donations, enough for Vianne to survive on.

Vaguely, she remembered her old home, the town she had grown up in. She remembered her guardian, the mayor. She remembered his wife. She remembered the beautiful, idyllic garden in the centre of that town. That had been home, too. Until she had been driven away.

In her heart of hearts, Vianne made herself a promise. If, one day, she were to leave D's side and settle down somewhere, she would return here, to the home that had no garden, but was no less beautiful, though for an entirely different reason.

* * *

Three figures in dully coloured hooded cloaks lounged, leaning against the wall of a building, across the road from an inn. The tallest one, who was huge compared to his companions, was smoking. The broader of the two shorter ones kept cracking his knuckles. The one remaining hooded figure was completely still.

The inhabitants of the industrial town passed down the street, caught up in their daily labour, barely sparing the three mysterious strangers a glance. However, when a newcomer rounded the corner onto that street, he drew suspicious, disapproving glares from the passers-by.

He was clearly out of place in here, among the dirt and grime of the poorly-maintained residential sector of a struggling town dealing mainly in heavy industry. Everything about him stood out starkly against the de-saturated colours of the dusty surroundings, from his immaculate shoulder-length chocolate curls and fine aristocratic features to his gaudily embroidered velvet coat, glaringly clean white breeches and polished boots. His presence was almost like heresy. The intense displeasure of the townspeople was almost tangible; perhaps only the silver bow slung over his back stopped them from setting upon him, ridiculing him and running him out of town.

At his appearance, the slender hooded figure finally stirred. As the archer disappeared through the swinging doors of the inn, all three figures budged from their lounging positions and moved, almost as a single unit, towards the same building. The giant among them threw his cigarette down as he walked, leaving it to fizzle out on the damp, filthy cobblestones. Or perhaps a street urchin would pick it up and draw the last few puffs from it.

The three watchers went into the inn. The archer in the gaudy clothes was speaking to the innkeeper, who was clearly uneasy about serving him. Neither he nor any of the people hunched over tables in the common room intervened when the giant hauled the archer around and slammed him into a wall. To the inhabitants of this town, the archer had asked for it.

Confronted by three shady individuals, the archer did not seem ruffled at all. In fact, he smiled coolly at the slender figure, who was evidently the leader of the trio. "Ah," he said, almost casually. "Who might you be?"

The slender figure threw back her hood, and her two companions followed suit. A head of fiery red hair and a fiercely pretty face met the archer's vision. The giant who held the archer pinned against the wall had a shaggy grey-streaked mane and beard, while the short, broad-shouldered muscleman with a complexion like bitter chocolate standing at the woman's shoulder had a clean-shaven head and face.

"Hello, Rydel," the woman said, smirking.

The archer's smile never wavered. "Why, if it isn't Talia!" he said pleasantly. "Ethan and Fabian too, no less. May I be of service to the three of you?"

"What are you doing in a place like this?" Talia asked. "In case you haven't noticed, you're a little out of place here."

Rydel laughed. "I'm chasing my prey, of course," he replied. "My bow has tasted his blood and is drawn here by it. What brings you here, lovely Talia?"

"Go back, Rydel," she told him. "You are not to chase the hunter D anymore. He is ours."

"It is my job to kill him," Rydel said simply. "He is my quarry. Now let go of me."

"You will not back down? Fine," Talia conceded. "Then when the time comes, I will kill you first. I won't let you get in my way."

Ethan let go of Rydel, who calmly straightened his coat before brushing past Talia. As he passed, he said in an insidious tone, "What are you after, Talia? What are you trying to prove?"

"Don't speak of things of which you don't understand," she said warningly.

"Oh, really?" Rydel responded, raising an eyebrow. With a glance at Ethan and Fabian he added, "It seems he taught you well, even if he has since estranged himself from you. Perhaps the next time you find yourself in the same room as your father, you should at least say hi. Good day, Talia."

Talia just stood there with a mild expression on her face, not seeming disturbed by what Rydel had said at all, as the princely archer walked out of the door. Only Ethan and Fabian saw the tightly clenched fist that hung by her side.

* * *

Vianne hesitated before the rusting gates of the industrial town. Under any circumstances, she would not have consented to even come near this place. Everything was dull-coloured and nondescript, the road was muddy in places, the not-so-sparkling-clean-themselves passers-by gave her dodgy glances, and thick smog generated by the numerous factories hung in the sky above the town. She could almost taste the grit in the air. Overall, the town gave her the impression of being a seedy place. It seemed bereft of joy.

Yet a travelling merchant had said that he had seen a black cyborg horse bearing a rider with an unearthly aura go in this direction. And her own instinct, the thread that bound her to D, was tugging her in this direction as well. So, reining in her apprehension, she stepped through the gates. Her religious outfit attracted a few sceptical glances, but that was all.

Treading cautiously, she advanced down the street in search for an inn or tavern where she could gather information. Rounding a corner while still looking over her shoulder to make sure she had not missed a building, she promptly crashed headlong into someone.

"Ouch! I'm sorry!" she yelped. When she saw who she had bumped into, however, her apologetic expression vanished, to be replaced by one of fear.

The surprise on Rydel's handsome face cleared up in an instant, and he smiled broadly. "So we meet again, Sister," he said, inclining his head slightly. "It puzzles me as to why you left your village, but that's really none of my business, is it?"

"N-no … it isn't," Vianne said shakily.

Rydel noticed her uneasiness. In one smooth motion, he dropped to one knee, took her hand and touched his lips to it lightly. "Forgive my discourtesy, Sister," he said. Every pore on his body was oozing gentlemanly charm. "I haven't introduced myself properly, have I? My name is Rydel, and I'm a hunter … of a rather special sort."

Vianne blinked rapidly a few times. _Did this dude just _kiss my hand_? I thought that only happened in really, _really _old movies …_

In spite of herself, she warmed slightly to the charming archer. No man had ever treated her like that, much less one as attractive, if possessed of an eccentric dress sense, as Rydel. It was flattering to receive such attention, at the very least.

She watched with slightly dreamy eyes as Rydel straightened to his impressive full height again. Then her gaze landed on the silver bow poking out over his shoulder, and she snapped out of it. Tactlessly pulling her hand out of his grip, she said coldly, "Why don't you just come right out and say that you're a Slayer?"

For a moment, Rydel seemed startled. Then his armour of unruffled charm repaired itself, and he said, "Well, since you wish to be direct, I'd like to ask you where I could find your dhampir acquaintance."

"If you think I'm going to help you kill him, you're sorely mistaken," Vianne shot back acidly. Without another word, she moved to brush past him.

Moving like a flash of lightning, Rydel slipped his hand into the crook of her arm and held her back. In a soft, almost sad voice, he said, "I don't want there to be any misunderstanding between us, Sister. Much as I'm unwilling to, I'm prepared to hurt you to get what I want."

Vianne turned to glare at him, letting hostility mask her fear. "Oh, yeah?" she taunted. "Then why don't you go ahead and try?"

* * *

"How, exactly, are you intending to find that Slayer without any trail whatsoever?" D's left hand questioned in a disparaging tone.

D replied in his usual quiet tone, "He will come to me."

"So you're playing sitting duck," the parasitic life form in his left palm said. "Sitting on a horse, no less."

"You could say that," D said disinterestedly as he rode on at a leisurely pace. The grimy industrial town was slowly dwindling behind him.

"What about the girl? Might I remind you that you _are_ still responsible for her?" the parasite said, seeming intent on picking a fight. Maybe being stuck indefinitely to the same dhampir's palm got boring after a while.

"She has her own task to accomplish," was D's unperturbed reply.

"Oh, yeah? I bet she'll rip your nose off your pretty face for taking off like that the next time she sees you. I can't say I'd blame her … it was a pretty underhand thing to do," the left hand continued to needle D. "Besides … after what happened with that necromancer, aren't you going to help her? Her job is obviously dangerous, you know. Somehow, I always knew you can't handle responsibility."

Perhaps losing patience at last, D clenched his left fist. God only knew if his taciturn silence hid secret satisfaction at the muffled yelps of pain that followed.


	5. Seeking Silver

**The Legend II**

Tainted Angel

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

**Chapter 5: Seeking Silver**

"Well?" Vianne said testily. "Are you going to let go of my arm, or are you going to cause me the promised pain? Make it quick."

"Please refrain from making such audacious taunts, Sister," Rydel chastised Vianne. "It is unbecoming, and were I some other adversary you would most likely find yourself in a very painful position. It is true that I have a degree of personal aversion to harming fellow disciples of God. But I have since been enlightened … I cannot allow those sentiments to impede my work in God's name. Do you understand, Sister? I have been instructed to kill you if you get in my way again."

Vianne laughed. "What if I wasn't a novice?" she asked. "Would you have killed me on the spot back then?"

To her surprise, Rydel let go of her there and then. His mouth curled in a slight smile as he said, "I probably would have retreated, just the same. I apologise if I'm mistaken, but it seems to me that you share a friendship with the dhampir that I'm trying to kill. Your bravery in protecting your friends is highly admirable, Sister. For that, and that alone, I would have backed down."

"Is that why you're letting me go now?" Vianne asked.

Rydel smiled and shook his head. "I don't really need your information," he told her. "Just between you and me, Sister, my bow is made of a rare material known as Seeking Silver. Different kinds of Seeking Silver react to different stimuli. Some react to thoughts, and some to touch. Mine reacts to blood. As long as I have shot and drawn blood from a target, my bow will resonate with it and allow me to locate it. I trust you to keep that information to yourself, and perhaps your friend. Consider this little secret a token of the respect I have for you."

Vianne shrugged, not quite knowing what to make of that. "I don't stand to gain anything by spreading your bow's abilities to the world," she said, "and my only feud with you is that you're after someone it's in my interest to protect. Your secret won't hit the headlines."

Rydel inclined his head and turned to go. As he disappeared around the corner, he raised two fingers and waggled them slightly in a suave goodbye wave.

* * *

Vianne dropped into a rickety wooden chair in the common room of the last inn in town. A defeated sigh escaped her lips. No one sober enough or willing to answer her questions had seen anyone fitting D's description. Perhaps he had only passed by near the town, and had not actually gone through it.

Then something that Rydel had said came to mind. _"Different kinds of Seeking Silver react to different stimuli. Some react to thoughts, and some to touch."_

Struck with a nagging suspicion, Vianne fumbled around in her dress pocket and produced the silver compass that Raphael had given her. He has said that if she focussed her thoughts on the Sun Bracelet, it would point her in the right direction. Could it be made of Seeking Silver? More importantly, did it work on things other than the Sun Bracelet?

_Moon Bracelet,_ Vianne thought experimentally. Her eyes widened as the silver needle of the compass swivelled around to point right at the bracelet around her wrist for a few seconds before her wavering thoughts caused it to spin randomly again.

"Now let's try something totally unrelated to this whole bracelet fiasco," she mumbled. Glancing around, her eyes landed on a mug of beer on one of the tables. Watching the compass, she tried her best to concentrate her thoughts on that particular mug.

She was pleasantly surprised when the needle came to rest pointing in the exact direction of the mug. Then her concentration slipped, and the needle began to freely spin once more. But her hypothesis had been proven. She could find D with the compass.

* * *

Raoul leaned over the parapet of the balcony and looked down at the grounds of what had once been the abandoned mansion of a wealthy man. Now it was the abode of the mysterious female angel and the headquarters of the Slayers. 

Held loosely in his hand was a worn, faded photo of a smiling woman, a stern-looking man, a teenage boy and a girl toddler. That had been his family, back in a time when he would still hesitate to kill, when he still went by a different name.

_The firewood that the sixteen-year-old boy had just carried into the house clattered to the floor as he threw it aside and leapt to one side to avoid the slobbering beast pouncing at him. The creature had a scorpion's tail, a lion's body and three slobbering bear's heads. Rolling to avoid the sting on the end of the tail swishing down at him, the boy scrambled to his feet and ran._

_He slipped and almost fell in the pool of blood that had leaked from the mutilated bodies of his parents. Sheer desperation allowed him to keep his balance, however, and he staggered into the small bedroom at the back of the modest farm cottage._

_A measure of relief crept into his fear-filled face when he saw his terrified little sister huddled in tears in a corner of her cot. Without wasting precious time, he snatched her out of the cot and clambered out of the open window just as the carnivorous creature charged into the room._

_There was a horrifying crash behind them as the monster forced its way out of the window, more or less pulverising the wall as it did so. Without looking back, the boy ran towards the river._

"_Viktor, where Mummy?" his three-year-old sister shrieked hysterically. "Where we going?"_

"_Be quiet!" Viktor snapped in a tight voice as he dashed through the woods, feeling tree branches whip his face mercilessly, leaving red welts. He could hear loud cracks behind him as the monster ran down small trees in pursuit of him. He just kept running. If only, if only he could make it through this short stretch of woods before the monster caught up …_

_Abruptly, he burst out of the trees onto a bare stretch of riverbank. A small fishing boat was tethered to a post by the water's edge. Sweat pouring down the sides of his face, Viktor ran to the boat and vaulted into it. Putting his sister down in the boat, he whipped out his pocket knife and cut away the rope tying the boat to shore._

_Scrambling wildly over to the engine at the stern of the boat, he started it up, and began to steer the boat upstream. There was a town not far in that direction. The vessel had hardly gone a few metres before the monster charged out of the forest and made a spectacular running jump at the boat._

_Viktor cried out in pain and shock as the monster's huge paws struck his chest, pushing him out of the boat and into the running water. Carried by the momentum of its jump, the creature hit the water with a huge splash right next to him._

"_Viktor!" the little girl in the boat screamed in panic. She ran to the stern and teetered dangerously at the edge, holding her hand out towards her brother. But the engine of the boat was still running, and it was taking her further upstream, while the strong current pushed Viktor downstream. There was no way her short little arms could reach him. Even if they could, she would not have the strength to pull him back into the boat._

_He treaded water desperately against the current, trying to keep his head above the surface. "Get back in the boat!" he yelled at his sister as the relentless river swept him ever further away from her tear-streaked little face. "I'll come looking for you real soon!"_

_Suddenly, a set of powerful jaws clamped around his leg and towed him under. Thrashing blindly, he somehow managed to kick the monster's face with his free leg, and it released him. He rushed for the surface, along with a cloud of blood from his bitten leg._

_He broke the surface at the same time that the monster did. Treading water with its huge paws, the creature swam at him, snapping with all three sets of bear jaws. Its serrated claws raked his chest, creating deep craters and drawing more blood, as it bumped up against him. One of its cavernous mouths opened wide, blasting him with a surge of putrid breath. Then the lethal jaws descended to take his head off._

_A deafening crack sounded, then another, and yet another. The monster jerked in time to the sound. Then, with a dying bellow, it sank into the water, leaving a trail of blood that mingled with the blood leaking from Viktor's wounds._

_Dizzy from shock and blood loss, the teenage boy looked towards the shore and saw a tough-looking middle-aged man holding some sort of rifle standing at the river's edge. Then Viktor's vision blurred and he too sank into the bloodied water as darkness invaded his mind._

Raoul started when a sudden gust of wind ripped the photo from between his fingers. It fluttered away, carried by the wind, and disappeared from sight.

"Fuck!" he swore loudly as he leaned further out, trying to see where the photograph had landed. Growling curses under his breath, he grabbed his coat and headed out to look for it.

* * *

Vianne paused at a fork in the road. Taking out her compass, she thought of D. The needle pointed almost straight down the left branch.

Then she remembered what she was supposed to be using the thing for. Raphael had made her task sound pretty urgent. After all, there was no telling what a person armed with an unstoppable weapon could do.

_Solar Sanctuary,_ Vianne thought, trying to impress that idea upon the compass. The silver needle swivelled to point in almost the opposite direction. If she followed the other road, she might be able to find a way to the location to which the needle was pointing.

Hesitating, she weighed her choices. She could go after D, or she could secure the Sun Bracelet first.

_It's not like I'll be of any help to him now,_ she thought. _He can probably handle himself._ She considered this for a few more seconds before she turned and took the right fork.

* * *

D stopped his horse when a man dressed in those unmistakeable gaudy clothes stepped out of the trees by the side of the road. Rydel stood alone in the middle of the road, facing D. His bow was still on his back.

"We meet again, hunter D," the aristocratic archer said, a small smile tugging at his lips. "However, I ask you to postpone our battle yet again. It is not convenient for us to fight here, because there are a few … nuisances in the area who wish to interfere. Might I invite you to a more suitable location? A few days' ride east from here is an old mansion. There, I can declare my claim to your life and expect it to be respected. I'll be waiting, hunter D. It's a rather grand place; you won't miss it."

His eyes narrowed when D suddenly vanished from atop his horse. He reached over his shoulder and took hold of his bow. A split second later, there was a small shower of sparks as he used it to parry D's slash from above.

"Please do not make me say this again," Rydel said, sounding slightly annoyed. "I do not wish to fight you here."

Suddenly, the landscape twisted and changed. Rydel was gone, and D was standing alone on a single rock in the middle of a raging ocean. A shaft of light shot out of the rolling waves. Ignoring it, D turned around and slashed at the darkness. Suddenly, a second shaft of light flared into existence as it met his blade and scattered. The first shaft of light dissipated against D's back. It was only an illusion.

"Not bad," Rydel's voice commented. "But …"

A thin thread of light flashed as it grazed D's cheekbone. A line of red appeared where the light had passed. A drop of crimson liquid ran down D's otherwise flawless cheek.

"Our short skirmish has already attracted the attention of the nuisances I told you about," Rydel's voice went on. "Like I said, I do not wish to fight you here, under such annoying circumstances. Come to the mansion, D. I will be waiting."

The illusion vanished, and D was once again standing on solid ground. Wiping the blood from his cheek with his left hand, he sheathed his sword and climbed back onto his horse.

* * *

Vianne shuddered as she pressed onwards down the road she had chosen. A chill wind had played up about half an hour ago, and it showed no sign of stopping. The cutting wind was freezing, and it kept blowing dust into her face, forcing her to squint.

She let out a cry of surprise when something light struck her squarely in the face. Making a disgusted sound, she reached up and peeled the piece of paper away from her face. She was about to throw it away before she took a quick glance at it and noticed that it was an old photograph. Curious, she took a closer look.

For some time, she stood in the middle of the road and stared at the photo. Her brow was knitted in a deep frown. Then, instead of letting the print fly away on the wind, she slipped it into her pocket. Consulting her compass once again, she moved on.

* * *

D was riding down the road at a brisk canter when, suddenly, he pulled sharply on the reins. His cyborg horse let out and alarmed neigh and veered to one side. A moment later, the road directly in front of him exploded, showering him with small rocks and dirt.

Even before the flames from the explosion died away, D became a black blur leaping off his horse. Then he completely vanished, only to reappear a split second later by the roadside. At the same time, his sword carved a silver arc through the air, slicing effortlessly through the trunk of a sapling, and into the shadows beyond the tree line.

As the sapling fell, the ground beneath D's feet exploded. But he was already in the air, leaping to safety. By the time he had landed on the other side of the road, a towering, bearded giant of a man had stepped out from behind the trees.

"You're fast," the giant growled in a deep, throaty voice entirely fitting of his frame. Indicating the small crater on the ground, he said, "That was supposed to explode _before_ you reached the trees. You moved so fast that the sensors didn't have time to trigger the explosives until after you nearly took my head off."

D did not offer any answer. He simply shot across the gap between himself and the giant, moving faster than the eye could follow, and plunged the blade of his sword deep into the giant's chest.

Strangely, the giant did not fall, or in fact show any sign of discomfort at all. A slow grin spread over his broad, hairy face. "That's not gonna work," he said. His hand moved, drawing a handful of small metal balls from his pocket. Then he flung them in D's face.

In a fraction of an instant, D managed to pull his sword out of the giant's body and move smoothly to one side. The metal spheres flew past him, striking the ground and the trees. Each impact resulted in a small but powerful explosion.

The giant laughed as he took out more of the tiny bombs. Although there was a deep wound in his chest, no blood came out.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he said, still chuckling. "I am Ethan, a master engineer. I specialise in demolition, especially with the usage of explosives. And you can't bring me down by stabbing me through the heart, vampire hunter D. You can't do that to someone who's already dead."


	6. Family

**The Legend II**

Tainted Angel

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_# Hi all! Whew, I finally found the time, mood and inspiration to finish this week's chapter. It's been a week of party preparation and actual partying, among other things. Well, here's wishing everyone a very happy new year! By the way, my uploads might not be as regular from now on because I'll be starting school as of tomorrow. It all depends on my schedule, but rest assured that I'll try my best to be punctual with updates. Until next time, enjoy! Cheers!_

**Chapter 6: Family**

Raoul swore venomously as he headed back up the moonlit path towards the mansion. After searching the entire garden, he had not found his photograph. Now he had to get used to the fact that it was gone for good.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the angel practically gliding down the path towards him. The very sight of the deadly bracelet around her delicate wrist chilled his blood, but he forced himself to remain calm as she passed.

"With all due respect," he said in a voice so meek that it made him writhe with disgust inside, "might I ask where you are going?"

"I have business to take care of elsewhere, Raoul," the beautiful angel replied in her usual freezing tone. Yet she sounded almost … weary, for some reason. "It is not your place to be told parts of the Grand Design that do not pertain to you."

"Fair enough," he responded in an even tone while suspicion propagated prolifically in his mind. "I wish you a safe journey."

The angel did not answer, but she lingered on the path, as if on the verge of offering a reply. Then she said, "The thing that you came down here to look for … it blew away down the road to the south. If it is worth that much to you, perhaps you could go and look for it in that general direction."

Without further ado, the enigmatic angel swept out of the mansion grounds, leaving a slightly puzzled Raoul standing on the garden path. For a moment he hesitated, wondering how much the angel really knew about him. Then, with a small nonchalant shrug, he headed off the grounds as well.

* * *

Explosions tore up the ground as more of Ethan's little metal spheres flew and landed. D was constantly moving, never in the same spot for more than half a blink, as he avoided the small, concentrated blasts. His feet barely touched the ravaged ground. When they did, chances were that hidden explosives would blow up under them.

In a spectacular display of agility, D manoeuvred himself behind Ethan, his sword raised to bisect the explosive engineer in less than the time needed for light to flood a room. Yet Ethan's fingers lightly brushed the remote control at his belt, triggering a hidden bomb buried just behind him. A pillar of fire shot up out of the ground, spraying bits of soil and grass everywhere.

D performed a last-second flip in midair, barely avoiding being caught by the flames, although his hat was blasted off by the force of the explosion; that in itself was a point to Ethan's credit – it was a close shave.

Yet D's counterstroke was nothing that Ethan could have expected. Instead of following through with the flip, D somehow twisted himself around in mid-flip. The action itself was virtually invisible due to the sheer speed at which it was performed. Without pause even for breath, D shot in a U-shaped black arc towards and then away from his massive opponent.

Steel gleamed. D, with his long raven hair strewn uncharacteristically across his pale face, caught his falling hat on the tip of his sword. As he returned the accessory to his head, Ethan let out a grunt and dropped onto a knee and a hand. His other leg had been cut cleanly off halfway up the thigh; the jagged end of his effortlessly halved femur poked out of the stump. Again, there was no blood, even from such a severe wound.

Before Ethan's hand had fully touched the ground, D moved once more, seeming to any mortal observer to be disappearing from where he stood. His sword pierced the left side of Ethan's chest once more. This time, however, he carved into Ethan's flesh with a circular stroke, as if trying to gouge out the giant's heart.

A chunk of flesh fell away from the wound as D withdrew his weapon. The pale, somewhat mottled skin was marked with stitches. Someone had opened and then closed an incision over Ethan's heart recently.

Flipping over the hunk of flesh he had cut from Ethan's body, D separated the giant's heart from the rest of the gore. The vital organ was strangely swollen and wrinkled, looking at the same time bloated and shrivelled. Embedded in its centre was a tiny black skull.

"Ah, I haven't seen one of those in a long time," D's left hand commented. "It's a Skull Seed, isn't it? Valuable find. Any necromancer would gladly give an eye for that. It enables total control over an individual, while retaining the living body's personality and skills. All you have to do is kill the guy and stick this little thing on his heart. Pretty useful stuff, that."

D responded only by prying out the Skull Seed with the tip of his sword. Once the seed left Ethan's flesh, his body collapsed lifelessly. D brought the tip of his sword down upon the seed in an almost careless manner. The small black item crumbled into a few pieces under the force of the seemingly casual movement.

"What a waste," the left hand said, sounding slightly pained. "I guess you ain't into the necromancer stuff."

"My, my," a husky female voice said almost seductively. "You take talking to yourself to a whole new level."

D looked up. A woman was perched gracefully on a thick branch above him. Said woman was swathed in a long hooded cloak, which had its hood pulled back to reveal her sharply pretty face and short fiery red hair. Without waiting for the rustle that sounded soon after, D turned to look behind him. A short, stocky man with a complexion the colour of bitter chocolate stepped out of the foliage. He held a three-pronged sword in his disproportionately large hands.

"Congratulations on taking out my first puppet," the woman said. "I'm a little miffed at you for breaking my Skull Seed – it didn't come cheap – but I have to admit that it was impressive. Now, how about you entertain me again? My name is Talia, and that's puppet number two right there … his name was Fabian."

There was no reply from D. He simply spun around and struck out at the reanimated corpse of Fabian with a lightning-fast slash. The muscular midget easily parried the blow by raising his pronged sword, causing sparks to fly between the two blades. The next blow, dealt merely an instant after the first, however, drove Fabian a step back and marked the blade of his huge sword with a deep scratch.

"That's nothing less than what I would expect from someone who took out Ethan with such ease," Talia said from above. "You can't be any ordinary dhampir, can you? After all, these two took out dhampirs on their own pretty easily. Well then, why don't we complicate things a little?"

At those words, the ground near D's feet cracked and started spouting a small cloud of dust. Something rose out of the earth. It was the pale, thin body of an old man dressed only in rags hanging from his seemingly desiccated frame. Through the holes in his torn-beyond-recognition clothing, huge stitches that ran down his entire torso were visible. His face was bisected by a long stitched wound, too. That face belonged to Magister, the necromancer whom D had cut down just a couple of days ago.

"Meet my father, vampire hunter D," Talia told D from her perch. "The one who taught me to manipulate the dead. Well, now he's dead, and I'm using what he taught me to give him a new lease of life, which he will spend furthering my goal. Funny, isn't it?"

With startling speed, those bloodless arms latched around D's body with shocking strength, enough to hold the legendary hunter down on the spot and keep him from raising his sword arm for a second. Fabian rushed forward with his heavy weapon raised high over his head to bring down upon D. Yet D remained unperturbed even as the huge pronged sword descended upon his head to smite him with all the strength contained within Fabian's impressive muscles.

* * *

As suddenly as it had come, the fierce wind died down. Smoothing down her windswept hair with her hands as best she could, Vianne pressed on along the uphill road. Her legs were aching, and she was breathing hard. When the road finally levelled out, she plonked herself down on a fallen log by the side of the path and took a rest.

While she regained her breath, she took out the photo she had picked up and studied it some more. It was worn and slightly faded – clearly an old photograph. A wistful expression entered her eyes as she gazed at the scene depicted in the shot. A stout, stern-looking man stood beside his gentle-looking, smiling wife, who was carrying a little girl of about three or four years in her arms. On the other side of the kindly woman stood a sharp-eyed youth. He was smiling, too, and holding the little girl's tiny hand. There was a small farmhouse in the background.

Never taking her eyes off the photo in her hands, she fumbled around in her pack and found her old clothes by touch, taking another photograph out of a hidden pocket in her vest. This one was in even worse condition than the one she had found, having been soaked in water and blood sometime in the recent past. Vianne brought the two photographs next to each other.

Her own photo, while rather mangled, showed a little girl, perhaps slightly older than the one in the other photo, cutting a cake together with a smiling middle-aged man in a suit and his equally cheerful wife. It was a photo of the first birthday she had spent as an orphan. The man and woman in that photo were the younger versions of the mayor of her old town and his wife.

Vianne's hands began to shake. While the face of the girl in the birthday photograph was slightly blurred from the abuse the print had taken, it was clearly the same little girl from the photo she had found. By some twist of fate, she had found a photograph of the family she had been born into.

* * *

The tip of the longest prong of the sword raked the air in front of D's chest as the dhampir moved back to avoid the blow. Magister lay a few feet away, both arms twisted at impossible angles. No one had seen how D had, quite literally, broken his grip.

D circled at a blinding speed around Fabian, who was still charging forward, carried by the momentum of his monstrous swing. As D ran, he changed his grip on his sword. Coming back into view behind the dark-skinned swordsman, the pale dhampir drove his sword into the broad back of his opponent, twisting the weapon as it entered flesh.

The long sword went all the way through Fabian's body, its tip protruding from his chest. As the point of the sword burst through the front of his torso, a small chunk of bloody flesh was expelled by the drilling motion of the sword. Something small and black flew from the wound as well – the Skull Seed. It hit the ground and cracked in two.

D pulled out his sword effortlessly and gave it a flick to rid it of the gore clinging to it. Fabian collapsed lifelessly, just as Ethan had.

Somehow, Magister got to his feet and flung himself once again at D. His broken arms flailed wildly behind him like trailing ribbons. It was at once disgusting and comical. Before he even reached D, however, he was already pierced through the chest with the dhampir's deadly sword. Although it was not visible from the outside, the Skull Seed embedded upon his heart had been split in two by the sword.

Surprisingly, Talia laughed despite her defeat. She was standing upon the tree branch now, keeping her balance with no apparent effort at all. "I was never that great with necromancy anyway," she said, "although I tried my best at it, because I wanted that old man to be proud of me. He always wanted a son, you know, to inherit his skills. But all he got was me. Oh, how I tried to be tough like a boy for him. But it was never enough, see? No matter what, I was still just a weak girl to him. We fell out because of that."

She threw off the cloak shrouding her shapely form, revealing the knives of different sizes and shapes lining her belt. "Let me tell you something, vampire hunter D," she said, placing her hands upon the hilts of her weapons. "I don't believe in God, or in angels. I saw that so-called angel for what she was the moment I set eyes upon her. I pretended to believe she was an angel so that those _men_ would believe that there were female angels. Everything I do, I do to dispel the world's illusion that women are the weaker sex. Just like now. I'm going to kill you myself, vampire hunter D, not because I have anything against you, but just so that I can prove that a woman can succeed where countless men have failed. I can be stronger than any damn man! Prepare to die!"

With that, Talia leapt down from the branch and flung a pair of throwing knives at D. They were easily knocked aside with a sweep of his sword. Undeterred, she ran headlong at D with almost inhuman speed, a fighting dagger in each hand.

* * *

"Fuck, how am I gonna find it like this?" Raoul growled irately as he stormed down the road. Just then, a figure seated on a log by the roadside caught his eye. It was a girl in a long black dress. She held what looked like two small pieces of paper in her hands.

Raoul squinted. There was something scrawled on the back of one of the pieces of paper in faded black ink. The ink marks looked like they were exactly on the spot where the date had been written on the back of his photograph. Quite unable to believe his luck, he went closer for a better look, pretending to just be walking past.

By the time he was a few feet away from the girl, he could see that the ink marks really spelt out, in his father's handwriting, the date the photo had been taken. Without hesitation, he drew his pistol from his hip and pointed it at the girl.

Releasing the safety with a click, he said, "You have something of mine. I'll thank you to give it back."

The girl looked up with eyes that were almost exactly the same shade of dark blue-grey as Raoul's. Those eyes slid over the pistol barrel a few inches away from her face, the rifle strapped over Raoul's back, and finally Raoul's tanned, weatherworn face.

"What are you staring at?" he snapped.

Wordlessly, the girl held out his photograph. She had a slight frown on her face and a slightly faraway look in her eyes, as if she were trying to recall something from a long time back.

Raoul snatched the photo from her unresisting fingers before lowering his gun and turning to leave. Before he had taken more than three steps, however, the girl spoke.

"I remember now," she said. "I remember your name. Viktor … are you Viktor?"

"What the …!" Raoul sputtered. Wheeling around, he brought his gun up to point at the girl again. "Who the hell are you?"

Without answering, the girl proffered the other photo she held. Keeping his gun trained on her, Raoul approached and took it from her. Backing away a few steps, he took a quick glance at the blurred photo.

Flinging his gun aside, Raoul lunged forward and grabbed the front of the girl's dress. Shaking her roughly, he demanded, "Who the hell are you? Where did you get that photo? Where is the girl now? Tell me!"

The girl looked back at him with no fear in her eyes. "My name is Vianne," she replied in a hard voice, "and that's me on my fourth birthday."

Without warning, her delicate-looking hands latched onto Raoul's shirt, and she shook him right back. "Now tell me if you're Viktor!"

Raoul could only stare blankly at her. His eyes, filled with shock and disbelief, remained locked upon her damp, angry eyes for long moment after long moment. Then he released his grip on her dress and touched her soft cheek with a shaking hand.

"Vianne … you're Vianne …" he murmured, half to himself. "What happened to you?"

"I grew up," she answered. "You _are_ Viktor, aren't you?"

Smiling a little sadly, Raoul stepped away from his little sister. "I used to be," he told her. "They call me Raoul now."

He saw Vianne smile again for the first time in thirteen years. "But you're my brother still," she said, sounding as if she could not quite believe it herself. "I thought you were dead."

Heaving a sigh, Raoul seated himself on the log beside Vianne. "Someone saved me," he explained. "He was vampire hunter … a gunner. He was damn good at what he did. Rough guy, but he taught me to survive, and to kill. Once, he relented and went with me to look for you along the river. None of the towns by the river had heard of anyone taking in a little girl from the river. So he persuaded me to give up and follow him. Eventually, he died, and I followed in his footsteps. I even took his name. So what happened to you? Do you remember? Where did you go?"

"I don't remember much, really," Vianne replied, "but my adoptive parents told me a little about it. They found me in their town's reservoir, which was fed by the river several miles away. I guess the boat capsized, and I somehow got washed through their inlet."

Raoul looked stricken. "So that's why I couldn't find you. You could've drowned."

Vianne shrugged. "Yeah. But I didn't."

"If you were adopted by people from a town, what are you doing out alone in the middle of nowhere?" he asked.

Before Vianne had a chance to answer, however, the sound of steel clashing against steel came from the trees behind them. It sounded as if it were coming from some distance away.

"Stay here," Raoul ordered briskly before picking up his fallen pistol and dashing off into the foliage. Alarmed, Vianne ran into the trees after him. Branches clawed at her face and vines whipped against her, entangling her limbs. As she clumsily fought her way through them, Raoul, who was moving much more quickly, got steadily further away.

Tripping on an exposed root, Vianne fell. When she got up again, her brother was no longer in sight. She could not remember the way back, either. She could still hear the high-pitched chink of steel on steel, but to her untrained ears the sound seemed to be coming from all around.

She was alone, and lost. The worst thing was that she had left her pack, which contained her compass, back on the log by the road.


	7. Escort

**The Legend II**

Tainted Angel

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_# Wow it's been so long since I last uploaded a chapter! Two and a half months. I'm so sorry, all who are following this story. You wait two months, and all you get is another lousy transition chapter. I've just been so caught up with school and all that. It's gonna be erratic like that all the way until maybe June, 'cause that's when I have my holidays. Well, enjoy reading this ultra-late chapter, and have fun waiting for the next one .. which has more kick than this one. I hope. Cheers!_

**Chapter 7: Escort**

Talia somersaulted back from yet another failed assault, landing on her feet. She was breathing her hard. She and D had been fighting, moving steadily through the forest, for some time now. Neither of them bore a scratch.

In the space of time it took for one to blink, Talia attached either end of a length of chain to the pommels of her fighting knives such that the chain was suspended between the two weapons. Without pausing, she threw one of the knives. The blade shot through the air in a straight line towards D, but was effortlessly deflected by his sword.

The other knife left Talia's hand even before the first rebounded back at her. This time, the razor-sharp weapon shot up into the air. Controlling the movements of the knife with the chain, she swung it down upon D's head. When he swung his sword up to block the new assault, the first knife was once again coming at him, this time swinging in a wide arc at his legs.

Talia was no longer holding either of her knives. Both were constantly in the air, attacking D in rapid succession. She only held onto the long chain, using its tension and swing momentum to control her weapons. In effect, she had extended her reach while keeping herself at a relatively safer distance away from D.

It seemed now that her unorthodox technique had won her the upper hand over D, for he appeared to be unable to do anything but defend against the furious onslaught of her knives. Pressing her advantage, Talia threw out the chain such that it looped around D's body. One of the knives embedded itself in a tree behind D. Catching the other knife, she pulled the chain taut, momentarily binding D to the spot.

Smiling triumphantly despite the sweat beading on her forehead, Talia drew a small throwing knife from the dozens fastened to her belt and let it fly. It sliced through the air with deadly velocity, straight and true towards D's heart. She had won, or so she thought.

With a resounding series of loud chinks, the chain wrapped around D's torso burst apart, each broken link clattering to the ground around him. A single, lightning-quick lift of his sword sent the speeding projectile spinning away to one side. At the end of that very same moment, Talia found D right in front of her. The deadly steel implement in his hands swung down.

* * *

Vianne yelped in fright when a many-legged thing burst from the dense undergrowth to her right. She ducked in the nick of time, and the cat-sized creature sailed over her head.

She watched in utter horror as the creature flipped itself back upright, only a few metres away from her. For someone as afraid of many-legged creepy crawlies as she was, it had to be the most disgusting-looking thing ever.

The creature, while not all that large as far as dangerous creatures of the Frontier went, looked positively vicious. It appeared to be some revolting conglomeration of a spider, a scorpion, and a hermit crab. It had eight long, jointed legs, a pair of savage-looking pincers, and huge downward-pointing fangs dripping with some weird yellowish substance. Its entire body was encased in a segmented black carapace, and short, stiff hairs sprouted from the bottom joints of its legs. Its rear end held a set of spinnerets. A long, jointed scorpion-like tail, complete with venomous stinger, grew directly above the spinnerets. Its horribly swollen abdominal section was capped by a rough brown-and-green shell that resembled mossy rock. A pair of large compound eyes glared from either side of its head, and long, erect eyestalks sprouting from between those eyes raised a pair of smaller eyes above its head.

"Oh my God," Vianne whimpered as she backed away from the nightmarish little monster. Tears of panic and overwhelming irrational fear began to fill her eyes. "Get away from me …"

Unable to look at the mutated arachnid any longer, she turned to run. The creature bunched its legs under its bloated body and effortlessly jumped the distance between itself and Vianne, landing on her back. With a scream of terror and disgust, she thrashed wildly, trying to throw it off. It simply dug the sharp tips of its legs into her back, the stiff hairs helping it to keep its grip, and held onto her hair with its pincers. Vianne writhed harder, and felt the stinger whiz past her face, missing her head by mere inches. With courage born of desperation, she grabbed four of the creature's legs in each hand and pried them off her, flinging the bug away. She felt a sharp yank on her scalp as the two bunches of hair held in the creature's claws broke off.

Giving off a piercing screech as it hit the ground with a crack that made Vianne wince, the monstrous bug rolled over onto its feet once again and scuttled at an alarming speed back at her. She jumped out of its way, but it rolled its abdomen under its body and shot a stream of thick, viscous white fluid from its spinnerets at her. It struck her ankle and spread around it. Upon contact with the air, the substance hardened into a tough cord. The mutant arachnid had Vianne snared on the end of its silk thread.

She screamed, tears streaming endlessly down her cheeks, as the creature began to reel her in by skilfully looping the silk around its legs. The gnashing fangs and twitching stinger of the creature grew ever closer as she was dragged painfully over the ground.

Suddenly, a bar of solid light shot out of the trees to Vianne's left. She had enough sense left to turn away and shield herself as the arrow of light struck the spider squarely on the head, blasting a huge hole through it. An opaque, sickly green, gooey substance with bits of black carapace stuck in it splattered the ground all around Vianne and the headless body of the spider-monster. Strangely enough, none of the unappetising stuff landed on her.

A second arrow struck the silk cord right beside where it wrapped around her ankle. The silk around her ankle disintegrated, leaving her free to move. Immediately, she got up and moved away from the still-twitching carcass. Only then did she look in the direction from which the arrows of light that had saved her had come from.

Rydel stood in the shadow of a tree, his bow in hand. Vianne's pack was slung over one lean shoulder. From a hidden pocket on the inside of his ridiculously flamboyant coat, he took out something small and shiny. Her silver compass.

"It is an interesting compass that you possess, Sister," he remarked casually as he strolled towards her. When he was a couple of metres away, he tossed the delicate navigational instrument at her. She caught it awkwardly. "Seeking silver, of a far more versatile nature than that used to make my bow. It's not something that should be left lying around."

"What are you doing here?" Vianne demanded.

Rydel raised an eyebrow quizzically. "I was under the impression my arrival was a welcome thing, given the circumstances," was his only reply.

Vianne glanced at the dead spider and felt a chill down her spine. "Fine. Thank you. I owe you for that," she conceded grudgingly. "My pack, please."

Rydel smiled as he slipped her pack off his shoulder and held it out. She tried to take it from him, but he did not let go. Instead, he said, "If I may be so bold, I would guess that you are looking for something, hence the compass. You seem to have some problem keeping yourself out of danger on your way to what you seek, so here's my proposal. I'll be your escort in exchange for that compass; after you're done with it, of course."

Vianne gave her pack an experimental tag, but Rydel held it fast. "I don't need your help, archer," she snapped. "Let go of my stuff!"

Rydel let his eyes drift, very deliberately, to the spider-creature he had just dispatched on her behalf. "Are you sure about that, Sister?" he needled her. "I'm offering you my services out of goodwill, no strings attached. Consider it."

With an exasperated groan, Vianne yanked once again on her pack. Perhaps Rydel had seen a change in her demeanour, for he let go if it this time. She shouldered the pack and brushed past him brusquely. Without looking at him, she called back, "Follow if you like. But I'll warn you, if you take the compass, after I'm done with it, as your payment, you'll wait a long time for it. Because I alone decide when exactly I'm done with it, and I ain't gonna give it up for services I didn't voluntarily contract."

Effortlessly, Rydel drew up beside Vianne. "You drive a hard bargain, Sister," he commented. "But it's a deal. Maybe by the end of your errand, you'll decide that I deserve the reward after all."

"One more thing," Vianne said, pausing and turning to face the princely archer. "Stop calling me 'Sister'. I'm no nun. Nor am I a novice, or a follower of God in any way. Just so you know. Still wanna tag along with me?"

Rydel's eyes twinkled flirtatiously as he used two fingers to brush a strand of loose hair behind her ear, after which he stroked them down the side of her cheek. Taking hold of her chin, he gently but firmly angled her face up towards his. He leaned so close that when he spoke, she could feel his breath on her lips. "But you see, that just confirms what I've been suspecting for some time. It changes nothing."

He closed in even more, until his lips touched Vianne's, so lightly that there was barely any pressure. Then he tilted her head down and moved his mouth upwards, brushing her skin all the while, finally planting a firm kiss between her eyes. "Except, of course, that it allows me to do that without guilt. Now that we're clear, shall we go?"

Vianne grabbed the slim masculine hand that had travelled from her chin to wrap loosely around her throat. She was trembling slightly, and there was a faint blush in her cheeks. With all the strength she possessed, she flung Rydel's hand away from her and gave him a rough shove. "Don't fucking toy with me, you bastard," she spat, letting her show of anger cover up the mad fluttering of her heart. "Don't think you can screw around just because your damned face is pretty."

Rydel's smile only widened, as if he knew, when she herself did not, that she had enjoyed that chaste little kiss even more than he had. All he expressed in words, however, was his apology as they moved out through the forest, following the needle of her compass.

* * *

The scent of blood reached Raoul's nose even before its source came within view. He burst out of the dense foliage firing off a round from each of the twin pistols he held in his hands, but there was no enemy to be found. Holstering the smaller guns, he reached for the rifle slung over his back.

There were four mangled corpses littered on the ground among the trees. As Raoul walked past the first three, all of which bore fatal chest wounds, he identified them as Ethan, Fabian and Magister. When he got to the last one, which appeared to be the latest victim since its single wound was still leaking blood, he grimaced.

"Talia …" he muttered almost mournfully as he knelt beside the last corpse.

Talia's head had been bisected by a diagonal slash from her temple to the opposite jaw. The top half had fallen away from the rest of the body, and a neat, if somewhat blood-soaked, cross-section of her brain was clearly visible. One of her eyeballs had fallen out of its socket, and stared eerily at Raoul from where it lay in the pool of blood around her halved head.

"Shit," Raoul swore, turning his gaze to Talia's relatively intact shoulder instead. "You got your ass handed to you, woman. Looks like I didn't arrive quickly enough to save or avenge you. Well, looks like the least I can do for you is to give you a semblance of a decent burial."

He got up and looked around for a good spot to dig a hole. When he located one, he steeled himself and started to drag Talia's body towards it.

* * *

Rydel frowned when the manor came into view. He peered over Vianne's shoulder at the compass. It seemed to be pointing right towards the imposing building.

"What, exactly, are you looking for?" he asked.

Vianne hesitated for a moment, as if wondering how much to tell him. Then she simply said, "A sanctuary."

Rydel felt a sharp jolt. "I suppose you could call that mansion a sanctuary," he told her. "But you can't go in there. That is where the angel resides. Only Slayers and guests may enter."

"I'm not looking for that kind of sanctuary, you Christian dolt," Vianne said impatiently. "You'll see when we get there. But if my sanctuary really is in that house … well, let's just say that you'll prove useful after all."

"I can't help you intrude upon the abode of the angel!" Rydel protested.

"You're supposed to get me safely to my destination," Vianne said calmly as she continued to follow the compass needle towards the manor. "Besides, I won't disturb your precious angel. I'll just go in, get what I came for, and get right back out again. I'm sure the angel won't mind."

Suddenly, Rydel grabbed the bow from his back and whirled around, drawing back the bowstring as he did. An arrow of light formed in the space that he had created between the bow and the string. He fired it at the figure that had just emerged from the trees across the road.

Vianne turned just in time to watch the arrow splash against the long, slightly curved blade of a familiar-looking sword. The man holding the sword was tall and pale and dressed all in black. The black traveller's hat he wore low over his face did little to mask the unearthly beauty radiating from him. Somehow, D had found her.

"I'm glad you could make it," Rydel said, smiling as if meeting an old friend. "Now, shall we conclude what we left unfinished?" To Vianne, he added, "It looks like something's cropped up. I would appreciate it greatly if you step back and let me see to my business."

Vianne took a diagonal step that took her right in front of Rydel. She turned to face him, her eyes hard. "Make me."

Hesitation flashed across the surface of Rydel's warm brown eyes for a brief instant. His entire face froze up, as if he were tightly clenching his jaw, as he raised his drawn bow and pointed it at the centre of her chest. "Move," he said tersely.

Vianne raised her left arm to chest level. The silver markings on the Moon Bracelet glittered in the late afternoon sun. "Threaten me with something that can actually harm me."

For the first time since she had met him, Rydel seemed to lose his cool. "You're being unreasonable!" he snapped. "Just get out of my way!"

Before Vianne could open her mouth to retort, a cool voice said from behind her, "Vianne. Move aside."

Hesitating for barely a moment, she wordlessly stepped aside. Not wanting to watch the two men fight, she started up the garden path towards the mansion. Halfway up the cobblestone path, she turned her head back to look at them. Both D and Rydel were standing stock-still, weapons in hand but unused. Perhaps they, too, had an unspoken agreement to wait for her to move out of sight. Yet the intense atmosphere made it all too obvious that the battle had already begun in their minds.

Blowing air out through clenched teeth in frustration, Vianne whipped back around and ran the rest of the way to the heavy oak front door of the mansion. Wrenching open the sturdy door, which was unexpectedly unlocked, she slipped alone into the comfortingly dim, cool corridor beyond and slammed the door behind her.


	8. Angel of Death

**The Legend II**

Tainted Angel

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_# Whew, talk about erratic. Here's the next chapter, barely a couple of hours after the previous one. Now, I'd thank you not to think I'm that efficient ... it's just that I prepared a snippet that belongs in this chapter a long time ago. I have snippets all the way up to The Legend VII. It's a matter of being scared of forgetting my inspiration. So, here's chapter 8, with way too much explicit gore description in my opinion. Hey, if you're gonna rate a story M, might as well use that freedom, right? Haha. This story is going a lot faster than I had expected, though. It's probably going to end after two chapters, if not in the next one. I only just realised it myself. It's gonna be a short one, then. Not very cheerful, either, I assure you. Well, I hope you enjoy it anyway! Stay tuned for the finale! Cheers._

**Chapter 8: Angel of Death**

D raced down the long hall of mirrors, trailed closely by countless numbers of his own reflections running along the floor, walls and ceiling. Without seeming to impede him in any way, his sword spun a delicate silver web around his body as he ran, deflecting the arrows of light that seemed to shoot out of nowhere.

Reaching the end of the hallway unharmed, D slashed sharply sideways with his sword without stopping or slowing as he charged right into the mirror directly ahead. He tumbled through the seemingly solid glass without feeling any resistance. His keen ears picked up the sound of his sword slicing through fabric. His blind slash had only grazed Rydel.

D struck the snowy ground and rolled. The landscape had changed. He was outdoors now, in a field of snow. He could see the snowflakes clinging to his clothing, but could not feel their coldness. He could see the fierce blizzard lashing everything around him, but remained untouched by it. This sort of discrepancy between the senses would drive many an ordinary man crazy. But, of course, D had never been ordinary.

A shaft of brilliant white light shot out of the blinding snow towards D. Strangely, the taciturn dhampir did nothing. As the magical arrow whizzed past over his shoulder, the illusion dissipated. D was standing under the fresh darkness of a new night in the garden of the mansion. Behind him, a human figure let out a decidedly inhuman screech and fell over, pierced through the heart with the arrow Rydel had fired.

D spared the poor soul a glance. From the clothing it wore, the body on the ground was probably that of a local farmer. However, this particular farm hand had his mouth wide open in a fierce snarl, and his elongated, sharpened canines were visible. He had been changed by one of the Nobility and was now a slave.

Both D and Rydel watched with the calm, silent vigilance of seasoned hunters as more changed vampire victims clawed their way out of the numerous thick hedges around the garden. The loathed sun had just set, and they were emerging to feed. They quickly formed a menacing circle around the two hunters, who were both not moving.

Almost as one, the pair of adversaries went into motion. Rydel raised his bow in one sweeping motion and drew the string back, firing off arrow after arrow in rapid succession. D vanished from the spot altogether, his position marked only by flashes of steel and collapsing corpses. Within ten seconds, all the vampires had been taken down.

D stood over the corpse of his last kill, a few metres away from Rydel. "It seems that this place isn't as holy as you would like to believe," he remarked.

Tension was clearly visible on Rydel's face. "It can't be … how could something as vile as a Noble claim victims within the presence of an angel …?"

"The victims were hidden in this garden," D went on mercilessly, unbothered by Rydel's anxiety and disbelief. "It would be logical to conclude that the Noble who did this is an occupant of this house."

"That can't be!" Rydel protested as he looked down at the bodies strewn around. "The only occupants of this house are the angel and us Slayers. I've seen all of my compatriots walk in the sunlight …"

"So have I," said D.

Rydel's head snapped up sharply. "What are you trying to say?" he demanded. Judging from the suspicious, defiant light in his eyes, he already knew.

"Have you seen this so-called angel of yours walk in the sunlight?" D brought the weight of the unspoken accusation crashing down upon Rydel.

"No!" Rydel shouted, backing away and raising his bow, aiming it at D's head. "How dare you! How dare you defile the angel's honour! I won't let my faith waver. I won't believe your lie!"

"It isn't _my_ lie," D said. "_She_ is the liar, or so it would seem, wouldn't it? If you are so convinced of her innocence, why aren't you shooting? You doubt it yourself. I suggest you go in and ask her for yourself. I'm going to go chase the victim that got away."

With that, he walked down the path, through the gate and out of sight. Rydel stared after him, his shaking bow still raised, for a moment. Then, with a frustrated cry, he turned and raced towards the mansion.

* * *

Vianne stopped in front of the narrow door at the corner between two second-floor corridors. It seemed to lead into some sort of storeroom. She looked down at the silver compass in her hand and confirmed that it was pointing straight ahead. Returning the compass to her pack, she took off the Moon Bracelet and searched for a slot in which to place it. 

On the wall beside the door she found a circular indentation. She pressed her bracelet to it, and the metal accessory slipped in easily. She watched as the door vanished, and a gust of warmth rushed out from the light-filled place beyond the portal. She put her bracelet back on and was about to step through the doorway when a chill ran up her left arm.

Driven by some alien instinct that had taken over her own comparatively sluggish mind, Vianne whirled around, her left arm coming up to meet the comet of flame searing through the air towards her. The powerful blast sent a jolt down her arm as it splashed harmlessly against the Moon Bracelet.

In the middle of the corridor ahead stood a tall, unbelievably beautiful woman in a crimson silk gown. On her wrist was a bracelet that could have been the Moon Bracelet's twin, except that the swirling patterns on it were made of gold, not silver. Vianne had no doubt in her mind that that was the Sun Bracelet.

"So you are the girl with the Moon Bracelet," the beautiful woman said in a rich, melodious voice. "And, out of your petty human greed, you are here to steal my Sun Bracelet. Do you have any idea what sort of agony I went through to retrieve this? How I burned in that hateful sanctuary you now stand with your back to! I barely made it out with my life. What did I do all that for? I have a greater purpose, of course, a purpose too important to be told to a mere human like you. For that very same purpose, I will take your bracelet!"

A monstrous killing intent roared down the corridor at Vianne. Once it struck her, she knew that she could not possibly outfight this opponent. Breaking through waves of paralysing fear, she turned and sprinted down the corridor to her right as fast as she could, fleeing towards the stairs. She did not know who or what that terrifyingly beautiful woman was, but she knew that she would die unless she got out of the house.

Vianne was already running as fast as she could, but the woman was several times faster. She was suddenly right beside Vianne. With one sweep of her slender arm, she sent Vianne flying sideways. Vianne hit a wooden door with a scream and crashed right through, tumbling across the marble floor of the room beyond.

"I am the angel leading the Slayers, little girl," the woman declared as she kicked open the ruined door and entered the room. "It was a serious mistake on your part to trifle with me."

* * *

Raoul slipped through the back door of the mansion and closed it quietly behind him. He was about to head over to the kitchen to fix himself something to eat when a feminine scream echoed down the stairs.

He knew that voice. It was a voice he had only just heard that afternoon, but had already committed to his memory with fondness. _Vianne!_

Caught up with Talia's death, he had forgotten that he had left his younger sister by the roadside! What was she doing in the mansion? Anxious, Raoul grabbed his rifle and raced up the stairs to the second floor.

* * *

Vianne staggered back as blast after blast from the Sun Bracelet struck the Moon Bracelet on her wrist. Careful to keep her arm held up in front of her, she turned away, blinded by the repeated flashes of fire.

Suddenly, the blasts stopped. Before Vianne could regain her eyesight, however, the woman who called herself an angel swallowed up the distance between herself and Vianne, and struck Vianne a solid blow squarely in the stomach.

With a sharp cry of pain and shock, Vianne slid and tumbled across the hard marble floor. She crashed into the wall headfirst and was knocked senseless. Smirking contemptuously, the angel raised her arm, preparing to send another blast of lethal fire at the now-defenceless Vianne.

There was a loud bang from the doorway behind the angel, and her raised hand literally exploded in a shower of blood, pulverised flesh and bone shards. The Sun Bracelet was sent flying across the room. With a horrible tortured shriek, the angel whirled around to face her new opponent. Blood sprayed endlessly from her ragged stump of a wrist, which still had bits of skin and flesh hanging from it. The jagged end of her broken bone protruded from the gory mess.

In the instant it took for her to turn around, her face changed drastically. The delicate, beautiful visage became a contorted mask of pure fury. Her rosebud lips were drawn back to reveal a pair of long, sharp canines. Twin sparks the colour of blood flared to life in her eyes.

Raoul stood in the doorway with his rifle still raised and ready to fire another pulverising bullet into the angel's chest. At the sight of her horrifying face -- the face of a vampire Noble about to attack -- he froze for a mere second, momentarily paralysed by the crippling fear of vampires all humans were born with.

That was all the time the false angel needed. In that instant she dashed right up to Raoul and smacked the wavering rifle out of his hands with her one remaining hand. That very same hand plunged deep into his abdomen before the weapon even hit the ground. The loud crack of the rifle striking the marble floor was accompanied by a revolting squelch.

Raoul threw his head back and let out a nightmarish howl of pure anguish as a mass of ruptured intestines followed the female vampire's hand out of his body. Dark blood coursed from the grievous wound as he fell to his knees before the terrifying angel of the night. She dropped the slippery, bloody tubes she held in her hand and watched with her blazing eyes as the rest of the contents of his abdominal cavity spilled out of the gaping hole in his gut. A putrid smell filled the air.

Before all the blood drained from Raoul's body, the vampire bent over and sank her fangs into his throat. As she drank, the bleeding from her damaged wrist stopped, and her hand began to regenerate.

Raoul's bloodshot, pain-filled eyes were focussed on a single spot over the vampire's shoulder. He could no longer use his voice, but his paling lips silently formed his sister's name. Strangely, the last emotion in his eyes before consciousness abandoned him was not fear or sadness, but relief.

Suddenly, the vampire flung Raoul's gore-covered body aside and turned around, her eyes wide in shock. Her sensitive Noble ears had caught a soft click, much like the one her bracelet gave off when she clasped it around her wrist.

Vianne was on her feet. A thin stream of blood ran from a gash on her forehead. She was swaying slightly, but the fierce determination on her tear-stained face made it clear that she was not going to topple over without a fight. More importantly, she wore a bracelet on each wrist. Slowly, shakily, her right arm rose.

The vampire let out an indignant screech and bared her fangs at Vianne, who simply made a slashing motion with her right hand. A small mass of fire detached itself from the Sun Bracelet glowing around her wrist and seared through the air towards the vampire.

The flames struck the opposite wall and burned a huge hole in the stone as the vampire dodged. Vianne barely saw a crimson blur zip across the room before the large window a few metres away from her shattered outwards, and the blur passed through the resultant hole. The vampire had escaped out into the night.

Vianne's vision blurred suddenly, and she keeled forward. Vaguely, she heard running steps. Strong arms caught her as she fell, and her face met velvet instead of marble. Rydel slowly lowered himself on one knee, helping her into a sitting position on the floor.

"Your angel ... she's a vampire ... she killed Viktor ..." Vianne murmured semi-coherently.

Rydel's voice was that of a man who had just been robbed of his purpose in life as he said, "I saw. I was outside."

Suddenly, Vianne seemed to regain her strength as anger filled her dazed eyes. "You saw? Why didn't you stop her? Why did you just watch her kill my brother?" she screamed, grabbing the collar of Rydel's coat and shaking him. She dissolved into hysterical tears as she flailed her arms wildly, whacking Rydel all over his face and torso.

"I'm sorry," he said, still in that pitiful broken voice. "I ... I couldn't believe it ... I couldn't make myself believe what I was seeing. I couldn't move from where I was hiding ..."

Vianne abruptly stopped hitting him and buried her face in his chest instead. Her shoulders jerked violently as she sobbed with what seemed to be all the might in her petite frame. Rydel looked down at the top of her head and her trembling fists clenched around the collar of his coat as she cried, and something sparked to life within his dull eyes. Something that pushed away the pain of having discovered that the cause he had devoted his life to was but a mere scam. Something that filled the emptiness left by his broken dream of being the angel's right-hand man. A new life. A new purpose.

"I'll make it up to you," he said as he put his arms around Vianne comfortingly. "No matter what happens, I'll help you find and kill that Noble. Even if it costs me my life. And if I survive that, I'll be at your bidding until I die."

Vianne lifted her head and glared at him through her tears. When she spoke, her voice was flat and staccato. "I don't need your pity. I don't want your help. I told you the last time we met that I'm no nun. I'm not even a believer. You'll find no fellowship with me. Just get out of my life, damn you."

Rydel met her fierce gaze without flinching. "I heard you the first time. I'm not doing this out of pity or out of desperation for some fragment of my faith to cling to. I just ..."

He trailed off as he leaned downwards and touched his lips to Vianne's. Too surprised and tired to resist, she remained still, closed her eyes and let him kiss the horrors of the pass few minutes away. As the kiss deepened, she felt his warm hands wipe the tears from her cheeks. Then, barely conscious of what she was doing, she was kissing him back.

She was still dressed like a novice. The sight of them embracing in the same room as a mutilated corpse looked for all the world like a terrible, terrible sin.

* * *

Vianne and a coatless Rydel stood together over the freshly dug grave at the fringe of the forest. Raoul's body lay within the shallow hole with his rifle beside him and his twin pistols crossed over his chest. He wore Rydel's coat, which was tightly buttoned all the way to the throat, hiding both the horrible wound in his midsection and the fang marks on his neck.

Shedding silent tears, Vianne knelt by the grave. "You gave your life to save me," she whispered to the lifeless form below. "No matter what you believe, no one can find any fault with you as my big brother. Send my regards to the man who saved your life all those years ago and allowed me to meet you again. My only regret is that if we hadn't found each other, you wouldn't have died like this."

Reaching down into the grave, she took the pistols and slipped them into her pack. "I'll carry these with me, and they'll protect me just like you did."

From her pack she took out the silver compass and placed it into the grave, in her dead brother's limp hand. "In return, I'll give you this," she said. "It'll make it easier for you to find me next time. Just think of me, and it will guide you to me. Who knows, you might even take less than a decade to find me with the help of that thing. But for now, goodbye, Viktor."

Smiling slightly through her tears, she raised her right hand over the pit. The Sun Bracelet glowed orange. At a gentle wave of her hand, a droplet of flame fluttered into the grave, landing right over Raoul's heart. She stood up and stepped back as the magical blaze consumed her brother's body, reducing it to ash within a matter of seconds without so much as scorching the rifle at his side.

The fire faded away, leaving only a large pile of pale grey ash and the rifle. Letting the last of her tears fall, Vianne kicked dirt into the hole, covering the final resting place of the brother who had sacrificed his life to preserve hers, the brother she had barely known.


	9. Baptism of Fire

**The Legend II**

Tainted Angel

_Vampire Hunter D Fan Fiction_

_# Gah. Another ultra-delayed update. I am terribly sorry. I've been alternating between lazy and busy. Here's the final chapter of Tainted Angel, anyway. It's a little of a rushed ending, I'm afraid. I hope it doesn't put you off. Do look out for the next Legend story, Dream Walker! Just a small spoiler, but Dream Walker will be mainly Vianne-bashing. Why I am so mean to my own character, I have no idea. Just my sadistic streak coming out, I guess. Do try to enjoy my increasingly slipshod work! Cries. Hopefully it doesn't become a prevailing trend._

**Chapter 9: Baptism of Fire**

D walked down the second-floor corridor of the deserted mansion. He stopped in front what used to be the door to a storeroom. What he could actually see through the empty doorway was a large room with floors of tan marble. Rows of sand-coloured marble pillars held up the extremely high ceiling.

He had entered this house to investigate further about the supposed angel. The runaway vampire he had caught and eventually killed had not been very forthcoming. Then again, they rarely were. Perhaps deciding that the momentary distraction would not cost him too much, D entered the warm, bright solar sanctuary.

There was an ornate pedestal the same colour as the pillars in the middle of the spacious room, above which floated a bright orange solar orb. The pedestal was empty. A fiery redhead in a vermillion dress lay on the ground some distance from the pedestal with a knife stuck in her chest. No doubt she was the solar guardian.

D walked up to the pedestal and examined it. There were inscriptions along the edge. It was a description of the Sun Bracelet's abilities. He read it, and towards the end his brow furrowed ever so slightly. He was distracted, however, when he heard two loud bangs, like that of a door being slammed and then bolted shut, from the world outside the sanctuary.

D straightened up, stood by the pedestal, and waited. Barely a minute later, a pale woman in a crimson silk gown appeared at the entrance of the sanctuary. She remained outside, far enough from the doorway that the light spilling out from the sanctuary did not touch anything more than the hem of her dress.

"Well, well," she said, sounding pleased, "what do we have here? The vampire hunter D, spending some idle time sightseeing in the solar sanctuary, of all places. What a perfect opportunity. I won't even bother telling you that I'm an angel. You know very well what I am. You also know that you've killed countless numbers of my brethren, driving us to the edge of extinction. For that, I think I'm justified in killing you, aren't I?"

D did not bother replying. He simply ran forward at a speed that would have rendered him invisible to the average human, drawing his deadly sword. As he approached the portal, a malicious smile spread over the female Noble's fine features.

She grabbed the arch of the doorway on her side, and with her superhuman strength crushed the wood, ripping down the entire doorframe. At that very moment, D reached the portal and slashed out with his sword.

The blade met only a dull, black substance that had materialised in the archway on the sanctuary side. The sword that could bisect a vampire in one stroke left not even the faintest mark on the black blockage. The doorway on the other side had been destroyed. That could only mean one thing. D had been sealed in.

* * *

Vianne and Rydel stood side by side in the garden under the starlight, staring up the path at the firmly shut front door of the mansion. "I don't remember closing the door when we left," Rydel commented.

Without answering, Vianne ran up to the door and tried it. The heavy wooden rectangle did not budge. After rattling the knocker a few times, she turned and said, quite redundantly, "It's locked from the inside."

"Stand aside," Rydel instructed, raising his bow. With a single well-aimed shot, he fired through the door to destroy the bolt on the other side. Vianne pushed the door open, careful not to touch the blackened, still-smoking area around the hole Rydel's soul arrow had made.

Suddenly, Rydel made a horrible choking noise from behind her. She wheeled around just in time to see the dashing archer drop his bow and fall to his knees on the lawn, clutching at his chest in agony. Bulging veins were clearly visible in his temples and neck.

"Rydel!" Vianne screamed, sprinting towards him. With a tremendous effort, Rydel tore his hand from his chest and raised it, stopping her in her tracks.

"Don't … come near me!" he gasped hoarsely as he doubled over in pain. Suddenly he straightened on his knees, his eyes rolling back in his head. His lips moved, and the false angel's voice spilled from them.

"Come in if you dare, human wretch, but I'm afraid I'm not inclined to allow you to bring company," the vampire said through Rydel. "This man has outlived his usefulness. If you're wondering how I'm doing this, I implanted a modified Skull Seed over his heart upon his induction into the Slayer order. Part of his fierce loyalty to me was urging on my part, which when coupled with his religious faith made for a very good servant indeed. Now, unfortunately, his heart heeds a different call, and I have no choice but to stop it. As it is, he will spasm and grovel on the floor like a dying beast until the roots growing from the seed have completely enmeshed and strangled his heart into arrest. It's a painful process. Now, let's make things more interesting, shall we?"

Rydel began to rise to his feet, flailing and wobbling like a badly controlled puppet. In that same incoherent manner, he stumbled towards Vianne, hands outstretched. She backed up against the wall in horror. Rydel's hands fastened around her neck and began to squeeze. Vianne clawed at his hands, trying to tear them away, to no avail. Black spots appeared in her vision.

Just as Vianne was about to lose consciousness from the painful lack of oxygen in her lungs, Rydel's grip abruptly loosened, and he slumped upon her, forcing her to her knees. Lifting his head, he stared imploringly at her with bloodshot eyes that were nonetheless no doubt his own.

"It hurts," he choked out. "God, it hurts. Vianne, Vianne … I don't want to hurt you. She's coming back … I feel her grabbing at my mind. I'm of no use to you like this … kill me. Kill me … and take away the pain like you did back then. At a time like this … that's the best way I can think of to go. I shouldn't make you do this, but … you have to cut deep … you have to cut my heart out and break the seed. Hurry … don't hesitate … it belongs to you anyway …"

From a small sheath hidden in his boot, Rydel drew a gleaming dagger and threw it on the ground in front of Vianne. She scrambled backwards in horror. "Are you fucking nuts?" she shrieked at him. "I can't … I won't …"

Somehow, through the unimaginable agony, Rydel managed one of his killer smiles. "Would you rather I suffer for hours before dying?" he said in an amazingly steady voice. There was a strange, wistful expression in his pain-filled eyes. "Would you rather I die as a mindless slave to that false angel? Worse, would you rather I take you down with me? Hurry, Vianne … I can't fight her off for much longer …"

Trembling and shedding tears of fear, panic, and confusion, Vianne picked up the dagger and crawled up to Rydel. He leaned close, and she felt the light brush of his cold lips against hers. Then she tightened her grip around the hilt of the dagger, squeezed her eyes shut, and stabbed.

* * *

Vianne slipped through the dark corridors of the manor like a veritable ghost. Her shoulders were hunched in, and her face, which was drained of all colour, bore an expression of great trauma. She trembled, as if freezing half to death, as she drifted almost aimlessly down the dim passages. There were fresh bloodstains on her face, her clothes and her hands, which she held out in front of her with fingers curled like talons.

Suddenly, something let out a low grunt and dropped from the ceiling. It was a rotting corpse, complete with missing eyeball and maggot holes. With a panicked scream, Vianne fell to the floor and flailed her right arm wildly. Orbs of fire splattered the walls and ceiling. Finally, one deadly orange flame struck the zombie, completely incinerating it.

Vianne heard scrambling sounds from all around, along with the occasional grunt. From every doorway and around every corner poked the dishevelled heads of animated corpses similar to the first. Framed by the only clear doorway in sight was the unmistakeable figure of the elegant vampire Noble.

A cry of rage and anguish ripped from Vianne's throat as she swept her right arm in a wide arc, sending a barrage of flames at the vampire. The false angel vanished from her spot, dodging all the flames, and reappeared instantaneously behind Vianne. With a single blow she sent the comparatively frail human girl flying into a corner. The zombies, apparently under the vampire's thrall, closed in on Vianne, crawling on decomposing limbs.

Vianne sat up with some difficulty. She was badly bruised and bleeding from a few gashes. With a yelp of fright she unleashed more flames from the Sun Bracelet, destroying the closest of the zombies. Still, more approached undeterred.

From where she stood on the other end of the corridor, the vampire laughed. "You really did it, didn't you?" she sneered. "You cut out Rydel's heart. Oh, I can see it, not from the blood on your hands, but in your eyes. They are the bleeding, guilty eyes of someone who killed for love and not for hatred. Eyes that have seen unimaginable horrors – eyes that have seen the blood of a loved one being spilt by your own hand …"

"Shut up!" Vianne yelled hoarsely as she reduced more zombies to ash. "You are the murderer! You are the one who planted that seed in him!"

The vampire only laughed and jeered more. "What makes you think it really would have killed him? Can you believe every word I say? How naïve of you. How much less painful do you think it was to have his heart cut out than to be killed slowly by the seed?"

Vianne felt her blood run cold in her veins. Horrible images of how her hands had come to be stained with blood, on more than one level, flashed through her mind. It was her hand that had held that dagger, no matter the circumstances. What did that make her?

_A murderer. A murderer who killed, with my own hands, one of the few people who loved me. Is that all that I am? Why? Why am I always causing the deaths of people who care about me? Am I a jinx? Am I … cursed?_

An image of Rydel's wan smile swept aside the wildly racing thoughts. _"I'm fine like that, but avenge me when you get in there, if you feel bad." That's what his smile said. What am I doing, asking myself all these useless questions? Blaming myself won't bring them back to life. But if I just sit here and do nothing, I'll die, too, and their sacrifices would have been in vain. That's why …_

With a wild cry, Vianne literally blazed a trail through the zombies crowding her and recklessly tackled the surprised vampire. They crashed through a half-open door into a circular chamber – the audience chamber where the vampire had conferred with the Slayers back in her days as a counterfeit angel. Here, the vampire threw Vianne off.

Vianne tumbled over the floor, gaining new scratches and bruises, coming to a stop in the centre of the room just in front of the podium. The vampire stood near the door. Zombies were streaming in from behind her, closing in once more upon Vianne.

"Vengeance?" the vampire said derisively. "Is that your purpose in challenging me? Stop trying so hard. Even with both the Celestial Bracelets, you are still a weak human. You fool. You will die, just like the other two. Just like the foolish dhampir hunter. The vampires will triumph still. We will rise again! You weaklings, who are just dying to be killed, as your various allies have proven, only deserve to be crushed!"

Vianne wordlessly got to her feet. She was shaking with a potent mixture of rage and grief. The golden swirls on the Sun Bracelet began to gleam brightly.

"They weren't weak," she spat, carefully coating her words in poison. "They died for a purpose. And that was to let me live, so that I could defeat you in the end. I won't fail them, you arrogant bitch. You're the one who will be crushed!"

As she spoke, the glow emanating from the Sun Bracelet grew steadily brighter. It gave off a strong strobe of light. Both Vianne and her vampiric opponent glanced down at it. In that moment, light exploded from the Sun Bracelet, and everything was bathed in pure, blinding white.

* * *

The fierce white light that had exploded from the Sun Bracelet around Vianne's right wrist faded. She stood alone in the circular chamber; the vampire witch and the zombies she had summoned had all been utterly destroyed by the sunlight called forth by the bracelet.

Vianne dropped to her knees, trembling, her eyes still tightly shut. The swirls of gold on the Sun Bracelet turned black. A split second later, the entire bracelet became coal black, as if charred, and fell into pieces. The blackened chunks of metal fell to the floor with loud clinks. The Sun Bracelet -- Vianne's only weapon – was no more. There was only the Moon Bracelet -- the shield that the old priest had given her – left now.

* * *

D crouched behind one of the sand-coloured pillars, using it to shield himself from the bright rays emanating from the solar orb in the centre of the room. The dead guardian lay in her vermillion dress only a few feet away from him. The blade of the knife in her chest was reflecting some of the light at D.

Even sheltered as he was, D could feel the solar energy wearing down his endurance. Soon, his vampire blood would no longer be able to take the onslaught of the sunlight, and he would suffer the effects of sun syndrome. If he stayed much longer in the solar sanctuary beyond that, he would then die.

Suddenly, there was a loud cracking sound. D looked up at the doorway on the other end of the room. The wall of indestructible black substance blocking the exit had crumbled away. Summoning the last of his strength, D got up to make a run for it.

Just as he had straightened, however, everything around him disappeared -- the pillars, the corpse, the sun orb, everything. He was standing in the empty room beyond the door that had once doubled as the portal to the solar sanctuary.

"The solar sanctuary is only the resting place of the Sun Bracelet. Its power is tied to that of the bracelet, which must be broken now. Without the bracelet, the sanctuary can no longer exist …" D mused quietly, recalling what he had learnt from the inscriptions on the pedestal.

"She made it explode, didn't she?" his left hand groaned. "Please tell me she closed her eyes before it went boom ..."

* * *

Slowly, Vianne opened her eyes into slits. The air stung them, and she squeezed them shut again. She waited for the burning sensation to pass before attempting to open her eyes again. This time, they did not hurt, and she opened them all the way.

Her heart skipped a beat in her chest, then began thumping furiously. Her eyes were open, but it was pitch dark. It was night, but there had been windows around the rooms that had let in shafts of moonlight. Had the immense destructive power of the Sun Bracelet caused the chamber to collapse around her?

A hand landed on her shoulder. Vianne screamed and whacked it away. Before she scrambled away, a gentle voice said, "Vianne. It's me."

"D?" she said tentatively.

"Yes," D's voice replied out of the darkness. "I'm right in front of you, can't you see?"

"Where have you been?" she questioned him. She was shaking. So much had happened. Two people had already died because of her, one of them by her own hand. Somewhere deep within, she had feared that D had met a similar fate.

"It doesn't matter. I'm here now," D said in an uncharacteristically reassuring tone.

"Where, exactly, are you?" Vianne asked suddenly. "Not everyone has eyes like yours that can see even in this pitch darkness."

There was a long, pregnant pause. When a voice broke the silence again, it was not D's, but that of his left hand. It said, "It's not dark. There's moonlight coming in through the windows. Jeez, you didn't close your eyes before the explosion?"

It took a few seconds, but Vianne realised what had happened to her. The flare from the Sun Bracelet's explosion had blinded her. She dropped into a seated position on the cold stone floor as if utterly defeated.

"I'm ... blind."

Neither D nor his left hand answered. Instead, Vianne felt D's arms slip around her shoulders and under her knees. He lifted her from the floor and walked away.


End file.
